House to go ahead with oil and gas bill

JAKARTA (JP): The House of Representatives will go ahead with its plan next month to enact the oil and gas bill proposed by the government, despite protests from oil-rich regencies, several legislators said.

Julius Bobo from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-Perjuangan) faction at the House and Tunggul Sirait of the Love the Nation Democratic faction told The Jakarta Post that it was impossible to make substantial changes because deliberation of the bill had been concluded.

"It is now too late to accommodate the regencies' demands because the debating process for the bill has been completed," Julius said.

"We are now at the stage of putting the finishing touches on the draft law before delivering it to a plenary session for approval in mid-October," Julius added.

The Consultative Forum of Oil Producing Regencies earlier protested the oil and gas bill, demanding the legislators postpone the planned mid-October plenary session to pass the bill into law.

The forum urged legislators to establish a special agency called the Coordinating Board of National Oil and Gas in which the forum would have a representative. There is no such agency mentioned in the oil and gas bill.

The regencies demanded this board be assigned to watch over an independent body, called the Executive Body, which under the bill will take over state oil and gas company Pertamina's role of supervising and managing the country's oil and gas industry.

The bill aims to liberalize the country's oil and gas sector, lift Pertamina's monopoly within the sector and turn the state company into a profit-making limited liability company.

Under the existing Pertamina Law of 1971, Pertamina, on behalf of the government, regulates, supervises and manages the country's oil and gas industry.

Irianto M.S Syaifuddin, chairman of the regency forum, earlier warned that any rejection of the demand by the House would create dissatisfaction among people in regencies and could subsequently cause disturbances at the oil and gas operations in their respective areas.

The forum claims to have 45 regency and five municipality members in 14 provinces.

Tunggul said the legislators and the government had reached "in principle" agreement on all major issues in the oil and gas bill and that the passing of the bill into a law by the House was just a matter of time.

"In principle, the House has approved the bill and it is only perfecting the language of the bill before officially passing it into a law," Tunggul said.

Agusman Effendy of the Golkar faction also dismissed hopes that the House would review the oil and gas bill.

"It's too late. We received a lot of input about the oil and gas bill from various parties, including provincial councils, non-governmental organizations, experts, academics and the governors association, which was expected to also voice the regencies' aspirations.

The bill was submitted by the government last February. (11)