Newmont calls for govt help over land dispute
JAKARTA (JP): Gold mining company PT Newmont Minahasa Raya in Minahasa Regency, North Sulawesi called on Thursday for the government to help resolve its land dispute with the former landowners.
Company general manager Paul Lahti said in a statement that the ex-landowners were pressing the company to pay additional compensation for their former lands by blockading the company's ore crusher.
The action has forced the third shutdown of the company's operations in less than three months, he said.
Lahti explained that Newmont had tried to negotiate with the so-called Group of Five but the effort had been fruitless.
"We've tried very hard to facilitate discussions on this (land) issue, provide for neutral arbitrators to review all aspects of the cases and to seek alternatives for the resolution of the dispute, but the Group of Five has rejected every offer we've made," he said.
Lahti said the company was looking for help from the Minahasa regency authorities, the local police, the North Sulawesi provincial administration and the central government to enable it to resolve the ongoing dispute.
"The government cannot allow incidents like this to continue across the country. A handful of people are breaking the law and the police need to enforce the laws of this nation for investors to have any confidence in North Sulawesi and Indonesia," Lahti said.
He stated that Newmont still hoped the dispute could be settled peacefully, but he said the protesters were in violation of the law and have made verbal threats against company officials.
According to Lahti, the protesters numbered 12 people, including five ex-landowners who demanded the company pay them more money for the land they sold to Newmont in the early 1990s.
Lahti described the demands as illegitimate, adding that the group's actions were not supported by the rest of the 400 ex- landowners.
Newmont says that it is unable to meet the additional demands because it had paid the 400 landowners whose land it acquired some "healthy" compensation packages between 1989 and 1994.
Lahti said that as the ore feed for the crusher was running low as a result of the protesters' blockade, Newmont was forced to shut down the feed into the processing plant in the Ratatotok sub-district of Minahasa, thus closing down the operation.
Newmont was previously forced to halt operations for a week in June when local residents blocked the access road to the mine, demanding additional compensation for the disputed land.
The one-week-long protest in June cost the company around 2,000 metric tons of lost gold production per day.
The land dispute is the latest in a series of problems experienced by Newmont this year.
The company was involved in an acrimonious tax dispute with the local government earlier this year. The Tondano regency sued Newmont last year for a total of Rp 62 billion (US$7.7 million) in outstanding taxes on building materials and for other compensation.
The company eventually agreed in April this year to pay the local administration US$500,000 plus some compensation after the dispute had dragged on for months.
Newmont Minahasa Raya is 80 percent owned by Denver-based Newmont Mining Corp. and 20 percent by Tanjung Sarapung, which is owned by local businessman Yusuf Merukh.(cst)