A decision by the finance minister, Agus Martowardojo, to use the State Investment Agency (PIP) to purchase a 7% stake in a local mining firm, Newmont Nusa Tenggara (NNT), has set the minister on a collision course with powerful business interests. NNT runs the Batu Hijau copper mine on Sumbawa and was established by a US mining firm, Newmont, and a Japanese industrial group, Sumitomo. Newmont and Sumitomo are obliged to sell a 51% stake in the mine under the terms of their contract of works. A previous divestment of 20% was purchased by an Indonesian mining company, Pukuafu Indah. Another stake of 24% was bought by Multi Darerah Bersaing (MDB), a partnership between an investment vehicle of the Bakrie Group (headed by Aburizal Bakrie, the chairman of the Golkar party and one of the country's richest ethnic-Indonesian businessmen) and local governments in Sumbawa. Raising its stake to 31% would give MDB a controlling interest in the project, representing the culmination of its strategy to gain control of the mine.

The Bakrie Group has a controversial history. Companies within the group are variously alleged to have avoided royalty payments due on coal-mining operations, to have conspired with tax officials to avoid corporation-tax payments, and to have caused the Sidoarjo mud-volcano disaster in East Java through shoddy drilling practices. The group, however, denies these allegations. Mr Martowardojo's intervention may have been intended to ensure that good standards of corporate governance are maintained at NNT.

Unfortunately, Mr Bakrie has a history of using his political influence and the legislature to further his family's business interests. Signs of his response to Mr Martowardojo's move are already evident. At a special parliamentary hearing called to investigate the purchase, a Golkar legislator, Nusron Wahid, denounced the move as illegal and said that it required the prior approval of the DPR. He also called on the State Audit Agency (BPK) to investigate, and warned Mr Martowardojo to halt the purchase before it led to his being sent to jail of forced to resign. The finance minister maintains that the purchase was legal and within his authority.

Mr Martowardojo's predecessor as finance minister, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, faced an onslaught through parliamentary committees and BPK investigations after she too challenged the Bakrie Group's business interests, and eventually resigned from the post in 2010. The BPK is headed by a controversial former director-general for taxation, Hadi Purnomo, who has come under suspicion owing to the vast wealth that he accumulated while in that job. He was sacked by Ms Mulyani in 2006.