Hendro told to improve transmigration sites
JAKARTA (JP): The government intends to improve the quality of existing transmigration sites rather than open new ones, President Soeharto said yesterday.
The President told Minister of Transmigration and Resettlement of Forest Squatters A.M. Hendro Priyono to provide better protection and living conditions for the resettled farmers.
"The perception that the transmigration program is nothing but transferring poverty and misery (from densely populated areas to) somewhere else, must be proved wrong, because resettlement is meant to boost people's welfare," Hendro said after meeting with Soeharto at his private residence on Jl. Cendana, Central Jakarta.
The President also ordered the minister to solve land disputes at resettlement sites between local inhabitants and transmigrants.
He cited how 300 transmigrant families in Kendari, Southeast Sulawesi, were facing uncertainty about their land ownership because of negligence on the part of the transmigration administrators.
"Before opening a new resettlement site, it is better to complete all legal and administrative matters," Hendro quoted Soeharto as saying.
"At the moment there are at least 56 problematic resettlement sites and another 40 sites may face similar problems in the future," Hendro noted.
"The sources of conflict include administrative, social and geographical aspects," he added.
During the 1998/1999 fiscal year the government plans to relocate 46,000 families to 105 new transmigration sites, most of which are in Kalimantan and Irian Jaya.
Lt. Gen. (ret.) Hendro is not a newcomer to the transmigration sector, because through the post of secretary of development operations that he concurrently holds -- a position directly supervised by the President -- he has become familiar with resettlement, agriculture and supervision problems.
For short-term targets, the minister said he would encourage farmers to plant soybeans in a bid to boost national production as the country still imports at least 700,000 tons of soybeans per year.
"At least 50 percent of the 593,000 hectares of potential farmland can be tilled to produce soybeans," the minister remarked. (prb)