Experts Highlight Government Move to Buy Tin from Bangka Belitung Community Miners
Legal expert Romli Atmasasmita has assessed that the government’s effort to formulate a policy and legal basis for PT Timah to purchase tin produced by community miners in Bangka Belitung is the right step.
According to Romli, the government should prioritise guidance and legalisation of small-scale mining activities rather than prosecuting members of the public who carry out such work.
“It is right for the government to buy from community mines rather than punish them,” Romli said in a statement on Monday (31/8).
Romli’s statement was made amid the legal process in a suspected tin governance corruption case involving a number of parties, including PT Timah’s Director of Operations for the 2017–2020 period, Alwin Albar, and businessman Harvey Moeis, both of whom have received legally binding verdicts.
In the case directory for Alwin Albar, the Supreme Court stated that the calculation by the Finance and Development Supervisory Agency (BPKP) of state financial losses in the case, amounting to Rp300 trillion, was inaccurate.
The Supreme Court explained that the Rp300 trillion figure consisted of several components, including payments for tin ore to PT Timah’s mining partners amounting to Rp26 trillion and excess payments in processing and smelting equipment rental cooperation between PT Timah and private smelters of Rp2.2 trillion.
Accordingly, the amount relating to state financial losses was said to be around Rp28 trillion, while approximately Rp271 trillion represented environmental losses.
Romli also highlighted the BPKP calculation used by the Attorney General’s Office in the tin ore governance corruption case. He said the authority to calculate state financial losses is regulated, including through Supreme Court circulars.
“There are already SEMA Number 1 of 2026 and Number 3 of 2026, which stipulate that the BPK has the authority to calculate state financial losses,” Romli said.
Previously, the government took integrated steps to resolve the legal problems and the situation in PT Timah (Persero)’s operating area in the Bangka Belitung Islands Province.
The steps were agreed at a ministerial-level meeting on the return to an integrated resolution of the legal problems and the situation in PT Timah (Persero)’s Belitung operating area, led by Coordinating Minister for Law, Human Rights, Immigration, and Corrections Yusril Ihza Mahendra.
At the meeting, the government agreed that PT Timah may purchase tin produced and circulating among the public as a temporary measure to address the urgent situation in Bangka Belitung.
The policy was adopted after the government heard views from relevant ministries and agencies, including the Attorney General’s Office and the Finance and Development Supervisory Agency (BPKP).
“PT Timah is permitted to continue purchasing tin held by the public for subsequent stockpiling by PT Timah. This decision was taken to address an urgent situation in the region that must be handled immediately,” Yusril said in a written statement.
Yusril stressed that the policy is temporary until the government issues a specific regulation on tin.
The government is currently preparing a draft presidential regulation on tin, the drafting process for which has begun and has been submitted to the President and the Ministry of State Secretariat.
To accelerate the completion of the regulation, Yusril asked the Directorate General of Legislation to speed up the drafting process.
While waiting for the presidential regulation to be issued, the government has formed a small team led by Deputy Coordinating Minister for Law, Human Rights, Immigration, and Corrections Otto Hasibuan to formulate policy steps and legal aspects for PT Timah in purchasing tin from the public.