Forestry permits to be cut to reduce illegal levies

JAKARTA (JP): The Ministry of Forestry will no longer issue licenses or notification letters for 12 forestry activities in an attempt to eliminate illegal levies, according to a senior official.

Director General of Forest Utilization Titus Sarijanto said Wednesday that the licenses or notification letters were often misused to collect illegal levies from forestry ministries.

"I have instructed all heads of provincial offices to stop issuing licenses in 12 forestry activities, which had been misused to charge illegal levies and have been responsible for high costs in the industry," he said.

Forestry companies were previously required to obtain licenses or notification letters from the provincial office of the ministry to ensure that they abide by forestry regulations.

But forestry officials have imposed a fee in return for the letters or licenses required by the companies.

He said the forestry companies will no longer be required to obtain such letters in 12 activities such as log stock investigation, site inspections, log measurement inspection, and cutting inspection.

But he said the ministry still maintained four notification letters on a report of production output, logs transportation, logs examination and hard equipment examination.

"We maintain those letters because those activities need to be inspected to avoid violations," he said.

He added that although those activities would no longer require licenses, the ministry would still perform a tight inspection of such activities.

Minister of Forestry Djamaludin Suryohadikusumo said last month that his ministry had found 16 illegal levies in the forestry sector.

Most of the illegal levies were imposed by officials from provincial forestry offices when they made site inspections at a number of forestry firms or when they issued official letters for those firms.

Such illegal levies were common to speed up business procedures with authorities, Djamaludin quoted some forestry companies as saying.

He stressed that there were only 11 legal levies outside taxes imposed by his ministry, as stipulated by Government Regulation No.22/1997.

Titus also urged forestry companies and other players in the forestry sector to report any illegal levies to his office.

"The Ministry of Forestry will not hesitate to punish any ministry official who is guilty of charging illegal levies to forestry companies," he said. (gis)