State-owned enterprises: From bad to worse

Most newspapers quoted Sugiharto, minister for state-owned enterprises (MSOEs), today on the performance of SOEs in 2005 with different tones. The largest newspaper Kompas, for example, put as the headline about the loss-making SOEs (31) with total losses of Rp6.11 trillion in 2005 against Rp4.84 trillion in 2004 (27 companies). Meanwhile, number of SOEs that booked profit decreased from 113 to 108.

There's always excuse, as usual, that MSOE claimed higher net profit at Rp40.68 trillion against Rp37.79 trillion. In fact, if we look at the details, as available at Kompas, overall performance were decreased. Why? Because three companies, Pertamina, Telkom, and Semen Gresik booked higher profit of Rp7 trillion in 2005. Should other companies recorded the same performance as 2004, total profit from SOEs should have increased by minimum Rp7 trillion, right?
But the problem with Sugiharto's report is the data is not valid yet, especially because no valid data on Pertamina's performance. MSOEs put Pertamina's profit at Rp15.44 trillion as projected data, not actual profit. Even the 2004 profit is still listed as projected profit.
Unfortunately, no newspapers published the data about total assets of SOEs in 2005 against 2004. But some says total SOEs assets were around Rp1,000 trillion and that would translate to around 4% ROA.

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