Foreign loans next generations' burden

Foreign loans next generations' burden

From Pikiran Rakyat

Indonesia, our beloved country with a population of over 200
million, is very rich in that it has abundant natural resources
and minerals. Unfortunately, the people of Indonesia have not
been able to process the natural wealth themselves. As a result,
foreign companies have made much profit through profit-sharing
schemes with the Indonesian government.

From my observation of the present condition of our well-
educated people I can tell that there are enough well-experienced
qualified Indonesian mining engineers currently working in
foreign investment companies in Indonesia, and other qualified
engineers at home, who would be able to work in Indonesian mining
companies if Indonesia decided to begin to process the wealth
themselves. I believe they would be willing to join future
Indonesian mining exploration and processing companies as long as
they would receive international standard salaries and
allowances.

Accordingly, I wonder why we have not begun to process the
wealth ourselves? What are we waiting for? I am kindly asking the
present government and all Indonesian national leaders to start
thinking of establishing national mining companies that will be
employing Indonesian experts and engineers thus making Indonesia
make profits from them rather than sign joint-venture agreements
with foreign companies or rely on foreign countries' technology,
expertise and capital.

I am sure that if we can process the natural wealth ourselves,
we will gain billions of U.S. dollars for the country. This way
we do not have to sign foreign loans any more, which from my
observation already amounts to US$144 billion in total, which
also means that each and every Indonesian citizen will have to
repay the loans not less than $720 or equal to Rp 6,480,000. Very
clearly those loans will be extremely burdensome to the younger
generations of Indonesian people. And do not ask me who is to
blame for all this?

Our country does not seem to be able to put an end to
borrowing money from abroad thus indicating how very poor and
disorganized our country has been before and after what we call
the monetary crisis, I am morally obliged to urge the government
and the House of Representatives and all parties concerned to
immediately start designing concrete programs to put an end to
burdening the people with foreign loans.

DEWI FA

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