NGOs urge timber companies to pay their debts
NGOs urge timber companies to pay their debts
P.C. Naommy
The Jakarta Post
Jakarta
Environmental organizations and a corruption watchdog said on
Wednesday they were giving 601 companies 30 days to pay
reforestation funds and royalty arrears or they would announce
their names to the public.
The Indonesian Environmental Forum (WALHI), Greenomics
Indonesia and the Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) also urged
the government to take action against the companies, which they
said owed total arrears of Rp 1.28 trillion (US$152.38 million).
Of the total reforestation funds and forest resources
royalties, 60 percent will go to the central government to fund
the national reforestation program, and the rest will go to
provincial governments to fund reforestation in the provinces.
With these arrears, the government should be able to
rehabilitate about 426,667 hectares of forest, under a cost
assumption of Rp 3 million per hectare.
The NGOs noted that the arrears had increased by 36.3 percent
from Rp 464.5 billion in 2001 to Rp 1.28 trillion in 2003.
Companies in Kalimantan account for 56 percent of this figure, or
Rp 1.2 trillion.
Teten Masduki, director executive of the ICW, said the
Indonesian forestry sector should ban these companies and their
owners.
According to Government Regulation No. 35/2002, a timber
company that fails to pay its reforestation funds on time can be
fined 2 percent of the total debt per month.
But many companies fail to follow the regulations. The report
from the NGOs indicates that seven out of the top 20 companies in
arrears have asked the Ministry of Forestry to reschedule their
debts.
The executive director of Greenomics Indonesia, Elfian
Effendi, said the government could prosecute the companies under
Article No. 22/1997 of the Criminal Code.
WALHI said the government had failed to make this case a
priority.
"When compared to the Rp 1.7 trillion BNI (Bank Negara
Indonesia) case, this case is not too different, so the
government should not make it a second priority," said Longgena
Ginting, executive director of WALHI.
According to Longgena, about 3.8 million hectares of forest
are destroyed each year because of improper logging practices by
both legal and illegal loggers.