Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Lawmakers, businessmen and activists accused the government Thursday of including "inaccurate and outdated" data on a list of bad debtors it recently released to the public.

The data was "over-simplified", focusing only on 10 bad debtors who allegedly embezzled more than Rp 11 trillion out of a total of Rp 640.9 trillion disbursed by the Bank Indonesia Liquidity Assistance (BLBI) scheme, lawmakers said.

Gorontalo Governor Fadel Muhammad, included among the "non-cooperative" debtors, rejected the list, saying it contained "inaccurate and invalid" data.

The list showed the governor, who owned the now-defunct Bank Intan, had only repaid Rp 4.9 billion of his Rp 88.2 billion loan as part of the BLBI program.

Muchtar Luthfi, a lawyer for Fadel, one of Vice President Jusuf Kalla's closest aides, said the list used out-of-date 2002 data.

Muchtar said it should have included a verdict from the South Jakarta District Court that favored Fadel in a BLBI case against Bank Indonesia (BI) and the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) in 2006.

The court also ruled that Fadel had no further obligation to the state and, in fact, the government owed him Rp 23.5 billion, he said.

Fadel acquired Bank Intan on BI's suggestion to help prevent the country's banking collapse in March 1996.

Muchtar said his client submitted a total of Rp 65.5 billion to the bank plus Rp 10 billion in an escrow account to save the bank.

Fadel's companies later borrowed a total of Rp 31 billion from Bank Intan. Due to the 1998 monetary crisis, the bank incurred Rp 21 billion in losses and was taken over by the government under the BLBI program.

"So, Rp 65.5 billion plus Rp 10 billion minus Rp 21 billion minus 31 billion equals Rp 23.5 billion. This is the amount the state should pay back to us," Muchtar said.

Also questioning the list of BLBI debtors, released during Tuesday's questioning session at the House of Representatives, was regional Representatives Council member Marwan Batubara.

He said the data used on the list reduced the BLBI problems because it concentrated on 10 bad debtors who embezzled more than Rp 11 trillion, while the graft scandal involved a total of Rp 640.9 trillion disbursed in the scheme.

"The government's data focuses only on small fish while the problem is much bigger than that because the banking recapitalization program continues to put a burden on the state budget with interest payments of Rp 50 trillion to Rp 60 trillion per year," he told a BLBI discussion here Thursday.

The Megawati Soekarnoputri government issued a release and discharge policy under a presidential instruction to pardon debtors deemed cooperative after handing over assets valued substantially lower than their debts.

The policy led to the release of dozens of prominent businessmen with combined debts over Rp 100 trillion.

Lawmaker Ade Daud Nasution of the Crescent Star Party also questioned the government's focus on the 10 bad debtors.

"The scale of the embezzled money is much bigger. Presidential Instruction No. 8/2002 must be revoked to enable us to hunt down big debtors," he said at the discussion.

Noted lawyer Frans H. Winarta, also speaking at the same event, said the country needed senior government figures to solve the BLBI problem as well as consistent law enforcement against bad debtors.