Forestry permits to be cut to reduce illegal levies

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)