THE news delivered by the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) to the government a few days before the Lebaran holidays, was not good: the current inflation rate was the highest in the past four years. By the end of the year, inflation is predicted to go beyond 17 percentfar above the 12 percent assumed by the government.

To find out how the government reached their figures, Tempo reporter Yura Sahrul spoke to M. Chatib Basri, an advisor to Aburizal