Perumnas investigated for selling out public lands
JAKARTA (JP): The City Housing Company, Perumnas, will be held responsible if it is proved to have transferred its ownership of the 14-hectare tract of land in Pondok Kopi, East Jakarta, to PT Nusa Persada, which has developed the land into a housing complex for middle-class people called the Malaka Country Estate.
City councilor Aliwongso Halomoan Sinaga from commission D on development said that Perumnas is not authorized to transfer its ownership of any land it has without approval from the city administration.
Rumor has it that the land was illegally bought at Rp 4 billion by PT Nusa Persada from Perumnas and that the purchase was made possible by one of PT Nusa Persada's directors who is a former head of Perumnas III.
Perumnas III is a branch company of Perumnas.
Aliwongso made the remark yesterday when he, together with three other members of the commission, visited the Malaka Country Estate to see for themselves the lack of public and social facilities mentioned in complaints by the estate's residents.
Aliwongso said members of Commission D planned to invite Perumnas for a hearing of their case sometime in the near future.
Residents have already lodged their complaints with the City Council because they felt that PT Nusa Persada, the developer of the estate, had broken its promise to build kindergartens, elementary schools, houses of prayer and other public and social facilities.
Under the current regulations, developers are required to put aside 20 percent of land they develop for public and social facilities.
H. Mansyur Achmad, the head of the commission who led the visit, said in his speech to residents that PT Nusa Persada has no permit (SIPPT) to use the land in question. According to him it was Perumnas, not PT Nusa Persada, which was entitled to any permits involving the use of the land and its ownership.
Mansyur said PT Nusa Persada was not among developers legally listed at the East Jakarta mayoralty office to operate in the mayoralty.
Suspension
Because of that, both the state-owned Housing Company Perumnas and PT Nusa Persada, a private-run housing developer, were blacklisted as of March 18 by the East Jakarta Mayor, Sudarsono. Thus, all their permit applications have since been suspended for an unspecified date until the matter can be clarified and settled.
In a written statement distributed prior to Mansyur's speech, the residents said they have so far spent Rp 31.7 million to hire security officers and maintain security and sanitation systems, to maintain public parks and to pay rental on tennis courts.
The residents demanded that PT Nusa Persada pay all these expenses because it was part of the company's responsibility to provide public and social facilities.
Another problem brought up by the residents concerns land ownership certificates and building permits they desperately want to have.
There are also reports that in a dispute with PT Nusa Persada, Perumnas asked the state land agency (BPN) to suspend the certification of the land.
Addressing this problem, Yusuf Hamdani, another visiting councilor, said that PT Nusa Persada informed him that 200 out of around 340 house buyers in the estate have received their land ownership certificates.
Residents listening to his explanations, however, murmured, "Lies! Lies! Lies!" in response to his statement that Yusuf halted his speech for a moment before saying that he felt he had been deceived.
Sukirman, the head of the estate's neighborhood unit, told The Jakarta Post that only 100 of the residents had received the land ownership certificates and that none of them have received the building permits for their houses. (06)