Environment complaint agency recommended

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia needs an agency to handle environmental complaints, the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law said yesterday.

"To have such an agency is crucial because the public needs a place to report on environmental degradation," the center's director, Mas Achmad Santosa, said in a seminar.

Furthermore, bureaucrats have such broad responsibilities that it is difficult to handle environmental issues. Investigations into ecological problems are thus hampered. The agency would encourage negotiations, mediation and reconciliation, Achmad said.

There should also be a method of legal recourse to resolve problems pertaining to pollution or environmental destruction, he said.

Held by the Environmental Impact Management Agency (Bappedal), the seminar Methods and procedures for public complaints on environmental issues was attended by representatives from government agencies. The representatives welcomed the center's proposal.

Some participants suggested that the agency contain an investigation team of experts to look into the complaints and neutralize the conflicts of interest among related agencies.

They suggested that the public be allowed to have access to information and investigation findings. Government officials who do nothing about the complaints should be punished as well, they added.

Nabiel Makarim, a Bappedal deputy chairman, also welcomed the proposal.

"Most people who don't know where to take their complaints bring them to Bappedal. But the agency should really be a last resort after all other efforts have failed," Nabiel told The Jakarta Post.

He said that the proposed body would carefully select incoming reports so that it would not be buried by complaints.

The proposal will soon be submitted to Minister of Environmental Sarwono Kusumaatmadja for consideration. (14)