Govt, state bank to 'save' Dayak mill
Govt, state bank to 'save' Dayak mill
JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Forestry Djamaludin Suryohadikusumo said yesterday that his office and the state-owned Bank Rakyat Indonesia would "rescue" the troubled plywood factory owned by the Dayak Besar Group in East Kalimantan.
"We will rescue the plywood mill because we are concerned about their workers," the minister said during a ceremony for the signing of an agreement between six state banks and his office.
Djamaludin did not specify what he meant by "rescue". He hinted, however, that it might involve a takeover of the plywood mill.
"We are going to carry out this rescue operation with Bank Rakyat Indonesia and other competent plywood firms," he said without going into detail.
Dayak Besar Group, currently under sanctions by the forestry ministry, owes around Rp 350 billion (about US$159 million) to a group of private banks.
Dayak Besar Group, which is partially controlled by businessman Yusuf Hamka, reportedly dismissed its 2,400 workers without prior warning last month.
The massive dismissal came after the forestry ministry banned two of its subsidiaries from transporting their logs and sawn timber from their forest concessions in East Kalimantan.
Djamaludin said the sanctions were passed because PT Dayak Besar Vincent Timber Co. and PT Gelora Dayak Besar, two of the group's subsidiaries which control close to 200,000 hectares of forest concessions, had repeatedly violated forestry rules.
The two firms had also barred forestry officials from post- auditing their performance, Djamaludin said.
The minister also warned yesterday that if Dayak Besar tried to obstruct the "rescue operation" by marking up the net value of their troubled plywood mill, he would "seize all of their forest concessions."
Djamaludin said that under yesterday's agreement, he plans to allocate around Rp 400 billion of reforestation funds to finance the development of various timber estates this year.
The funds, which are collected as forestry levies from concessionaires, have so far reached around Rp 2 trillion, Djamaludin said. (hdj)