Five plywood plants in trouble due to poor management
Five plywood plants in trouble due to poor management
JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Forestry Djamaludin Suryohadikusumo
disclosed that five plywood factories are currently in deep
trouble due to poor management practices and irresponsible
logging.
Djamaludin told a press conference Friday said the five
companies were PT Hartati, PT Dayak Besar, PT Marina, PT
Sangkulirang Bakti and PT Sumber Mas.
The first three firms -- Hartati, Dayak Besar and Marina --
had already closed because of internal problems, including poor
management, he said.
Hartati, a plywood factory which has been abandoned by its
owner, has yet to pay a Rp 5.6 billion (US$2.44 million) fine for
several violations. "Because the factory has made several
violations, its forest concessions have had to be revoked,"
Djamaludin said.
He added that the case has been submitted to the Attorney
General's Office.
Dayak Besar and Marina were closed by their owners due to
internal problems, including conflicts in the joint ventures and
loan problems with their banks.
The other two factories -- Sangkulirang Bakti, a subsidiary of
the Barito Group, and Sumber Mas -- were reported by forestry
officials as lacking the virgin forests required to conduct sound
forest management practices.
Djamaludin said the concession period of the three concessions
owned by Sumber Mas would end in the near future.
"Although Sumber Mas has its own concessions, it's strange
that its plywood factory in Gresik, East Java, gets more than 90
percent of its raw material supply from the market and not from
its own forests," he said.
Djamaludin said that ever since the government started
awarding forest concessions to private companies in the early
1970s, the Ministry of Forestry had had to end the operations of
160 forest concessionaires. There are approximately 490 forest
concessionaires still operating in the country.
Conversion
Djamaludin said that out of the 160 concessionaires, 14 were
converted to serve other purposes, including for national parks
and preservation sites; nine were inactive because they have been
abandoned by their owners; 89 were unable to have their 20-year
concession periods extended because they either had no virgin
forests left, had conducted poor forest management practices or
sub-contracted their concessions to other parties; and 48 had
their concessions revoked by the government, after a series of
warnings on law violations.
Djamaludin added that three companies had their concessions
revoked without any warning because two of them had left their
forests unattended after the clear-cutting of the areas and the
other one had sold its concession to a third party without the
minister's permission.
He said the government could help solve problems faced by
privately-run forestry companies by including a number of
officials from state-owned forestry firms in the management of
their forests.
But he pointed out this could only be done if the
concessionaires had a certain amount of virgin forest left and
avoided clear-cutting.
So far, 27 forest concessionaires who own plywood factories
have agreed to establish joint ventures with state-owned firms.
"Forests are a renewable resource. If a concessionaire refuses
to replant trees that it has cut down and its plywood firm
suffers because of that, it shouldn't blame the government,"
Djamaludin said. (pwn)