President Prabowo Mandates Corruption-Free Forestry Governance
President Prabowo Subianto has given a firm mandate to the Ministry of Forestry to build a forestry governance system that is anti-corruption, transparent, and accountable. Minister of Forestry Raja Juli Antoni stressed that this directive serves as the main foundation for his ministry in carrying out sector reform while fully supporting efforts to eradicate corruption in the country.
The statement was made by Raja Juli while providing clarification regarding reports of a sting operation conducted by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) against Kuantan Singingi Regent Suhardiman Amby on Friday (3/7). He assured that the Ministry of Forestry would be fully cooperative with all ongoing legal processes.
‘We at the Ministry of Forestry, especially myself as Minister of Forestry, fully support all efforts to eradicate corruption. So we will assist the KPK, we will be cooperative, including this morning’s meeting which was my personal initiative as a sign of good faith to assist the law enforcement process,’ said Raja Juli.
According to him, this commitment is a direct manifestation of President Prabowo’s instructions to create a bureaucracy with integrity. He also appreciated the KPK’s steps in investigating alleged criminal acts of corruption, including those intersecting with the forestry sector, as law enforcement is considered an important part of internal reform.
On that occasion, Raja Juli outlined the chronology of his meeting with the Regent of Kuantan Singingi which took place on 2 June 2026. He emphasised that the audience was an official agenda submitted through a formal request letter, complete with an attendance list and minutes, and had been published through the ministry’s official social media channels.
However, after the meeting, Raja Juli revealed that the Kuantan Singingi Regent had left a sealed envelope in the audience room. He claimed not to know the contents of the envelope and immediately ordered his aide to return it.
‘I do not know what was inside, but I felt I had no right to the envelope. Therefore, I asked my aide to return the envelope,’ he said.
He explained that the envelope was returned on 12 June 2026, or about 17 days before the OTT of the Kuantan Singingi Regent. The return process was accompanied by a receipt and official documentation as a form of public accountability.
In addition to clarifying the meeting, Raja Juli also denied that any decision had been made regarding the release of forest areas in Kuantan Singingi during his tenure as Minister of Forestry. He stressed that his authority had never been used to change the status of forest areas into Other Use Areas in the region. ‘There is not a single decree I have issued for the release of forest areas in Kuantan Singingi. Not an inch of forest area in Kuantan Singingi under my authority has been released into APL,’ he concluded.