Private sector to have bigger role in resettlement
Private sector to have bigger role in resettlement
JAKARTA (JP): The government is drafting a bill that provides
better legal protection to resettlers and gives the private
sector a role in the state-sponsored transmigration program.
The Ministry of Transmigration's Secretary-General Ign.
Hardoyo said yesterday the state secretariat is reviewing the
bill before it submits the draft law to the House of
Representatives.
Hardoyo said the draft law, which is a revision of the 1972
law on resettlement, guarantees that among others, all self-
sponsored resettlers will have the land promised by the
government as long as they follow official procedures.
"The bill benefits both government-sponsored and self-
sponsored resettlers," Hardoyo told The Jakarta Post after a
hearing with House Commission V for transmigration.
Head of the ministry's legal and public relation bureau Prapto
Hadi said that the bill guarantees all resettlers will receive
ownership certificates for their land.
"In future, resettlers should no longer have a hard time
tending to their certificates. They should report any problem to
the government," he said.
The resettlement program is often criticized because of
glitches in its implementation. There have been reports of
settlers in remote areas not being provided with proper housing
and facilities.
"It needs 10 years to develop a new resettlement area. We
can't expect to see a result within days," Prapto said.
Hardoyo said that the bill provides more opportunities for
private investors to invest in resettlement projects.
"Formerly, people considered the government had a monopoly on
the resettlement program. The bill explicitly encourages all
people, including private investors, to invest in resettlement
sites," Hardoyo said.
Prapto added that the private sector will benefit from
investing in resettlement areas because the government has
already prepared infrastructure, schools, markets and other
facilities.
In addition, he said, investors will not have difficulty
finding workers in locations. "The government also offers
facilities, such as low-interest loans," Prapto said.
The ministry is responsible for carrying out the government's
ambitious program of resettling as many people as possible from
overcrowded Java and Bali to other islands in the Indonesian
archipelago. About two-thirds of Indonesia's 195 million people
live on Java and nearby Madura and Bali.
The government has been campaigning for people -- landless
people, the unemployed and the poor, to move to the eastern
provinces, where land is more plentiful than in Sumatra.
So far, 140,722 families have been resettled over the past two
years. The government has built 277 resettlement sites with
128,469 houses on 300,000 hectares of land.
By the end of the current Sixth Five-Year Development Plan
period in 1999, the government will have established 1,200
resettlement sites on some 900,000 hectares of land. It will also
have constructed 350,000 houses with clean water and public
facilities to accommodate resettlers. (31)