Indonesia gov’t denies paying PR company to gain White House access

JAKARTA, Indonesia – A day after an article was published alleging that the Indonesian government may have paid money to get Indonesian president Joko Widodo access to the White House, his minister of Foreign Affairs denied the accusations calling them “grossly inaccurate, baseless and some are bordering on fiction.”

The article, published on New Mandala, an online website focused on issues on Southeast Asia, cites a contract between a Singaporean consultant and a Las Vegas PR company.

The consultancy firm is said to have paid the PR company $80,000 to arrange meetings with key policymakers, secure an opportunity for Widodo to address Congress, and work with organizations that would support Widodo.

The article also questions whether it was the Indonesia government that paid the money through taxpayers’ funds.

To this, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement on Saturday, November 7.
 
“The Government of Indonesia did not employ the services of lobbyists for the preparation of the President’s visit to the US,” it said.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also never used the Ministry’s budget to employ lobbyists, although the Ministry understands that lobbyists are a real part of the US political life and are frequently employed by stakeholders as well as other governments around the world to advance their interests in the United States.”

The statement also denied the article’s claim of “a deep rift between foreign minister Retno Marsudi and Luhut Panjaitan, Widodo’s ambitious presidential chief of staff.”

This, the author said, is the reason for the “ill-conceived and poorly-excecuted visit” – which pushed the government to hire lobbyists to organize the visit.

“In reference to the baseless accusation of a rift between the Minister for Foreign Affairs with another Minister during the preparation of this visit, the Ministry regrets that a respectable academician could make such an inaccurate statement,” it said.

Widodo visited the United States last week, the first Indonesian president to visit the United States in a decade. While there, Widodo decided to cut his trip short to attend to the worsening haze in Indonesia at the time.

Widodo pushed through with his agenda in Washington DC, but flew back home and canceled his San Francisco leg where he was set to meet Silicon Valley executives. The meetings were continued by his ministers. – Rappler.com