•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   
•    EYEWITNESS   

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and visiting former Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati did not talk politics when they met here earlier this week, a presidential spokesman said on Thursday.

The former cabinet member turned World Bank managing director met with Yudhoyono at the presidential office on Tuesday with other World Bank officials. Sri Mulyani, who was the president’s finance minister until June 2010, was in town to attend an Asean finance ministers’ meeting.

“There were no political matters touched on at all,” presidential spokesman Julian Aldrin Pasha said.

Julian, who said he was present during the meeting, said the discussion focused on matters related to the World Bank and its cooperation with Indonesia in the economic sector, as well as the country’s master plan for development (MP3EI).

Yudhoyono lashed out on Wednesday at suggestions that Sri Mulyani had met him as part of a conspiracy involving the Bank Century case, calling the allegations “insane.”

He said he was bound as president to receive senior executives of international organizations, including the World Bank.

“The managing director of the World Bank, Mrs. Sri Mulyani, came to see me. As usual, as when there are senior officials of international organizations taking time to see me, then as a president I would discuss cooperative matters between these international institutions and Indonesia,” Yudhoyono said.

As finance minister, Sri Mulyani was subject to attacks by many lawmakers — most virulently those from the Golkar Party — who blamed her for the government’s Rp 6.7 trillion ($750 million) bailout of private Bank Century in 2008.

Last week, Golkar politician Bambang Soesatyo aired a similar suspicion: that a recent meeting between Sri Mulyani and Vice President Boediono was likely linked to the Century case.

“The closed meeting between former Finance Minister Sri Mulyani and [Boediono] at the vice presidential office recently, besides being for official business, could also be suspected of having to do with the latest developments in the legal process in the Bank Century case,” Bambang said.

As a member of the House of Representatives’ Bank Century oversight team, Bambang was among those on the frontline of efforts to get the government to take responsibility for the costly bank bailout.

He claimed Sri Mulyani and Boediono must have discussed scenarios linked to the Bank Century case, especially since the case was still being investigated by the House.

Bambang said the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) was tracing the bailout process through a forensic audit, but that the agency had not yet been able to uncover a clear money trail.

“The results of BPK’s tracing so far appear to make Sri Mulyani and Boediono — who at the time was the Bank Indonesia governor — uncomfortable,” he said.

Bambang called on the two officials to take responsibility for the suspected misuse of the bailout funds.