14 timber companies lose concessions

JAKARTA (JP): The government has revoked the logging concessions of 14 timber companies after they failed to pay overdue reforestation fees by April 1, Minister of Forestry and Plantations Muslimin Nasution said on Tuesday.

Muslimin said the number was larger than the nine he initially reported to President B.J. Habibie last week.

The nine companies, which controlled 972,100 hectares of the country's forest areas, have failed to pay debts amounting to Rp 47 billion.

"However, our latest data shows that 14 concessionaires have failed to meet the deadline. So we'll revoke the other five too," he announced.

He said his decree on the annulment of logging concessions of the recalcitrant timber firms would be issued in the next two or three days.

Muslimin said timber companies had been given a three-month deadline from January to settle their reforestation fees and forest royalty debts, but there had been no response.

"Those timber companies were given a warning and a 2 percent fine per month has been imposed on them since January. Since they failed to pay their debts before April 1, their logging contracts have been revoked," he said.

Director General of Forest Utilization Waskito Soerjodibroto said that unpaid reforestation fees reached more than Rp 137 billion (US$16.1 million) as of the end of March.

He refused to name the companies whose concessions were being revoked, saying that the government would reveal their identities after the decree on revocation was issued.

He divulged that the debtors were timber companies operating in East Kalimantan, South Sulawesi, Maluku and Irian Jaya.

He said PT Prabu Alaska, a timber firm operating in Irian Jaya, and another company operating in Kalimantan which was linked to Anthony Salim, the son of tycoon Liem Sioe Liong, has protested the termination of their logging concessions, saying they had already settled their debts.

"We are investigating it. If they settled their debts before April 1, we'll have to cancel the revocation of their logging rights. But if payment was after the deadline, then they will lose their licenses for good," he said.

Waskito said it was possible that the two timber companies did not pay off their debts through one of the several banks appointed by the ministry to handle payments, causing funds transferred to the government's account to arrive after the deadline.

Reforestation fees are mandatory fees imposed by the government on forest concessionaires to ensure forests are managed in an environmentally sustainable manner. The size of the fee depends on the volume and type of timber felled.

Since April 1 last year, the government has accounted for reforestation funds collected from timber companies as nontax receipts in the state budget. Previously, the funds were transferred to the forestry ministry's bank account and its allocation was governed by presidential decree. (gis)