"We hereby state that no state-owned company is interested in buying the divestment shares. It is not cancellation but we are indeed not interested in the offer," he said at his office here on Thursday.
March 18 is the deadline for negotiations on the Newmont divestment scheme.
Based on the deal with the Indonesian government, PT Newmont has to divest up to 24 percent of its shares to the government.
Right now seven percent of the shares are left for further divestment and waiting for buyers.
Mustafa said with regard to the seven percent share divestment he had no longer directed state-owned companies to enter into the copper and gold mining company.
Before the government had often been mentioned to buy the shares and prioritized two state-owned mining companies namely PT Aneka Tambang and PT Batubara Bukit Asam for carrying out the purchase.
"For the divestment of the seven percent shares offered before state-owned companies were indeed interested but for the latest one we made no bidding at all," he said.
He said if the state-owned mining companies entered into that company they would only become a minority shareholder so that their contribution would not be significant.
Earlier the government gave signals for Perusahaan Investasi Pemerintah (PIP) to enter by acquiring seven percent of Newmont`s divestment shares but until now no decision had been made on it.
Mustafa said it would be better for PIP to enter in this case. "However we would fully refer it to the finance minister or the regional administrations," he said.
In 2010 PT Newmont paid Rp5.761 trillion in obligations to the Indonesian government consisting of Rp4.658 trillion in income tax, Rp636 billion in dividend tax, Rp177 billion in employees` income tax and Rp24.3 billion in other kinds of taxes.
The production royalty payment meanwhile reached Rp265.9 billion.(*)
Editor: Aditia Maruli Radja
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
