/2016/04/20/663917839p.jpg)
JAKATA. President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo summoned Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan on Monday over reports citing the latter's name in the controversial leaked information on clients of Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, known as the Panama Papers.
Luhut admitted that one of the topics of discussion between him and the President was his name being included in the Panama Papers as reported by prominent news outlet Tempo over the weekend. "I have talked to the President. There is no problem," he told journalists after the meeting on Monday morning as quoted by newsportal kompas.com.
He declined to provide further details about the meeting. He even tried to avoid journalists by running to his car and only answered a few questions before ending the interviews claiming that he had a flight to catch.
Tempo magazine reported over the weekend that based on investigative reports the magazine had conducted, Luhut's name was included in the leaked documents from Mossack Fonseca, the Panama-based law firm providing shell-company services for its clients.
Tempo magazine reported on Saturday that Luhut's name was recorded as a director of Mayfair International Ltd registered in the island country of Seychelles. The offshore company was established on June 29, 2006 with two companies PT Persada Inti Energi and PT Buana Inti Energi as the shareholders.
PT Buana Inti Energi is the subsidiary company of energy and plantation firm, PT Toba Sejahtera established by Luhut in 2004. The director’s appointment certificate stated that Luhut's address was Jl. Mega Kuningan Barat III No. 11, Jakarta, and included a copy of Luhut's passport, according to the leaked documents.
Luhut denied his involvement in Mayfair saying "I’ve never heard of it. We never owned Mayfair, this house number is 18," he told Tempo last week.
Investigations by the US-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists ( ICIJ ) revealed that nearly 215.000 companies and 14.153 clients were tied to Mossack Fonseca. The reports showed that politicians and business people had been keeping their wealth in offshore companies for years.
Even though the practice is generally legal, such financial arrangements can be misused for committing illegal practices, such as evading tax or money laundering.
