ADITJONDRO TO REVISE CONTROVERSIAL BOOK'S CONTENTS

Jakarta, Dec 30 (ANTARA) - Controversial "Cikeas Octopus" book writer George Aditjondro has promised to revise the book's contents, especially on allegation that ANTARA News Agency had diverted some of its Public Service Obligation (PSO) funds to Bravo Media Center.

Bravo Media Center is an institution for media relations to support Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's second-term presidential campaign last June 2009.

"George has admitted the allegation about ANTARA was a mistake and he intends to revise it. The bottom-line is that no ANTARA PSO funds were diverted to Bravo Media Center as written in the book," ANTARA News Agency President Director Ahmad Mukhlis Yusuf said here on Tuesday after a dialogue with George Aditjondro hosted by a local tv station.

Mukhlis said Aditjondro was unable to prove his accusation against ANTARA since the author had only relied on one-sided information without confirming it with related parties.

"ANTARA will give Aditjondro a chance to verify his information with every ANTARA employee," Mukhlis said.

Before, ANTARA News Agency had sent a letter to Aditjondro asking the author to revise the contents of his controversial book within 3 x 24 hours.

"If Aditjondro admits his fault and apologizes, we will consider an amicable settlement," said Mukhlis.

ANTARA receives Public Service Obligation (PSO) funds as reimbursement for part of its operation expenditures to disseminate certain categories of news agreed on with the government yearly.

According to Mukhlis, in 2008 , ANTARA and the Ministry of Communications and Informatics (Depkominfo) had agreed on six news themes for ANTARA to cover and disseminate.

The themes were democratization, national economic resilience against global crisis, millennium development goals (MDGs), national character strengthening and overseas national imaging.

Besides the six themes, ANTARA also carried out coverage of commercial news disseminated through satellite to its subscribers and other platforms such as short message service (sms), TV display and regional on-line news service as well as free news service for the public.

He emphasized the procedure for disbursement of the PSO funds including those for ANTARA by the Office of the State Minister of State-owned Companies was very strict. Reimbursement can be processed only after verification of harmonization between news contents and the previously agreed themes.

Whereas, the financial disbursement procedure is tightly verified by Depkominfo based on state budget regulations.

"So, there was no misappropriation of PSO funds, and it was impossible to do so," Mukhlis pointed out.