JAKARTA - Outspoken former Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama has used YouTube as a platform to lambast bad bureaucracy, rent-seeking and systematic inefficiency in Indonesia's state-owned companies.

Speaking on YouTube channel "Poin", which has more than a million subscribers, Mr Basuki - who is popularly known by his Chinese nickname Ahok - expressed his frustration over the management of state-owned oil company Pertamina for acquiring overseas oil fields on borrowed money while ignoring prospective businesses domestically.

He also alleged that another state company was trying to engage in rent-seeking.

Mr Basuki, a political ally of President Joko Widodo, serves as the chief of Pertamina's board of commissioners, whose job is to supervise the board of directors. He is also a member of the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle.

Pertamina is one of 140 state-controlled companies under the auspices of Indonesia's state-owned enterprise ministry.

Mr Basuki said Indonesia should establish a super holding company for state-controlled firms, after the example of Singapore's sovereign wealth fund Temasek.

"The state-owned enterprise ministry should be disbanded... and we (should) instead have Indonesia Incorporation, like (Singapore has) Temasek," Mr Basuki said in the 6½-minute video uploaded on Monday (Sept 14).

The former Jakarta governor, who previously served as deputy to Mr Joko when the latter was himself Jakarta governor, also singled out another state-owned company that tried to charge Pertamina an excessive fee of 500 billion rupiah (S$45.7 million) for a "going-into-a-paperless-office project".

"They are insane. They asked for 500 billion rupiah for a paperless process in Pertamina," said Mr Basuki.

"If they receive that kind of money, they wouldn't have to work and could then instead happily take a long sleep," he argued, likening the company trying to squeeze money out of Pertamina to a python that has just swallowed a big prey whole.

Pertamina management, Mr Basuki said, had unduly ignored offers by private investors to work together to build oil refineries, which Indonesia badly needs in order to cut dependency on fuel imports.

He also said Pertamina could have tapped at least 12 potential oil blocks for exploration domestically rather than venturing overseas and acquiring foreign assets.

Building refineries is a programme Mr Joko wishes Pertamina to undertake expeditiously.

Mr Basuki also took issue with the way underperforming Pertamina senior officials were sacked from their respective posts but continued to receive the same fat salaries merely on grounds of seniority.

Reform-minded Mr Basuki battled corruption and improved healthcare when he was Jakarta governor between 2014 and 2017. Under his leadership, the city administration had the most transparent annual spending budget, which was made accessible online, allowing the public to help monitor and detect any irregularities.

Mr Basuki, who is an ethnic-Chinese Christian, was accused of blasphemy by political opponents, after he made a speech in September 2016 that referred to a Quranic verse.

He had argued then that the verse had been misused to deceive Jakarta residents into voting against him.

But he was convicted and later sentenced to two years' jail for blasphemy in 2017.

After he was released from prison, Mr Basuki was appointed by Mr Joko to take up the role of chief commissioner in Pertamina, one of the country's most strategic state companies that had been often plagued by inefficiency and corruption.

Known for his blunt remarks and unforgiving attitude towards underperforming civil servants while in office, Mr Basuki has been facing resistance from some quarters within Pertamina.

The YouTube video posted on Monday has already garnered 1.2 million views. In it, Mr Basuki said those resisting him are wrongly accusing him of creating disharmony and chaos in Pertamina, in an effort to unseat him.

Responding to Mr Basuki's video, Pertamina spokesman Fajriyah Usman told news portal cnnindonesia.com that the company respects the statement made by Mr Basuki, whose job is to supervise the firm's management.

Ms Usman added that the company is currently undergoing internal restructuring for improvement.