President Prabowo Forbids Sale of State-Owned Enterprise Land
PRESIDENT Prabowo Subianto has emphasised that land owned by state-owned enterprises (BUMN) must not be treated as commercial commodities. Such state-owned land, he stated, must be prioritised for public interest, particularly for the government’s people’s housing development programme.
This directive was communicated by Housing Task Force Chairman Hashim Djojohadikusumo during the launch of residential construction to support the 3 million houses programme at Manggarai Station in Jakarta on Monday 16 March.
“President Prabowo has stated several times that BUMN land is the land of the Indonesian people. Therefore, such land cannot be sold at market prices. It is forbidden. It is specifically for subsidising the people’s housing needs,” said Hashim according to a press statement.
According to Hashim, the presidential directive emerged because there is a tendency amongst some parties to view state-owned land as assets that can be released at commercial prices. If this occurs, he said, the programme to provide affordable housing for low-income communities would become increasingly difficult to realise.
He emphasised that state-owned enterprise land should be utilised to support government social policy, particularly the provision of housing for communities.
Beyond its social programme dimension, housing development is also valued for its broad economic impact. Hashim stated that the housing sector can serve as one of the drivers of national economic growth.
“With this housing programme, we can drive and even achieve economic growth rates of 8% or higher,” he said.
According to him, house construction will trigger activity across various industrial sectors directly related to construction. “Even students studying macroeconomics understand that so many sectors will be set in motion. Cement, furniture, electrical cables, steel, timber – everything is interconnected,” said Hashim.
While encouraging accelerated development, Hashim cautioned that the housing programme should not merely pursue unit number targets. He believes that building quality must remain a priority so that communities are not disadvantaged.
In his view, quality control monitoring must be conducted seriously so that the houses built are truly habitable and provide long-term benefits to communities.
President Prabowo Subianto stated that he will appoint special presidential envoys across all BUMN to strengthen the supervisory system over state asset management. Prabowo further announced that he has received reports that return on assets of BUMN companies under Danantara’s purview have increased by more than 300% over the past year.
According to him, theoretically there is no management system capable of managing such a large number of entities under single control.
The Investment Management Agency for the Power of the Nusantara or Danantara has begun to review or conduct audits of state-owned BUMN companies.