Private company to sue West Jakarta mayoralty

JAKARTA (JP): PT Tiwa Muda Corporation, a private developer, has threatened to file a lawsuit against the West Jakarta mayoralty for blocking the issuance of land certificate proposals advanced by the company.

Director of PT Tiwa Muda Corporation, Iken B.R. Nasution, told The Jakarta Post yesterday that proposals for the processing of land certificates for 164 houses in its housing complex in Meruya Udik, West Jakarta, have been submitted since 1981, but not a single one has been issued so far.

The mayoralty refuses to process the proposals because it claims that the housing complex has engulfed part of the mayoralty's property, he said.

According to the mayoralty, 1.15 hectares of the 5.8-hectare housing complex, which was built in 1980 and is now inhabited by employees of PT Unilever, is the mayoralty's property.

Nasution insisted that the housing complex is wholly owned by Tiwa Muda. He acknowledged that the 1.15-hectare plot of land, on which 33 houses stand, was previously owned by the West Jakarta mayoralty, but that is has been sold to his company.

Executives of PT Tiwa Muda, according to Nasution, have tried to talk with mayoralty officers to solve the lengthy land dispute, but no deal has yet been reached.

PT Tiwa Muda recently resubmitted the proposals for the processing of the certificates to the West Jakarta Agrarian Office, he disclosed. The company is demanding that the agrarian board issue certificates for the 131 houses in the complex, excluding the 33 houses located on the disputed land.

If this attempt is blocked by the mayoralty again, PT Tiwa Muda will bring the case to the Jakarta office of the State Administrative Court, Nasution said.

"We have to hand over the certificates to all the buyers, who have paid for their houses in cash," he said He accused the West Jakarta mayoralty of being inconsistent in the dispute.

West Jakarta Mayor Sutardjianto should talk with executives of PT Tiwa Muda in person, Nasution said, arguing that it is the mayor who has the authority to do that.

Meanwhile, an officer said that the West Jakarta mayoralty is ready to face the company's lawsuit.

"I agree to bring the case to court too," Solihin, the West Jakarta mayor's assistant of administrative affairs, said. (29)