Reforestation funds 'should be returned'

Reforestation funds 'should be returned'

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Forestry and Plantations Muslimin
Nasution said yesterday he would try to get back reforestry funds
used to buy shares of a company set up to finance domestic jet
manufacturing.

"Reforestry funds should not be used for projects not related
to reforestation. God willing, we will get it back," Muslimin
said after giving an address at a meeting of timber and
plantation company executives.

Since April 1, the government has accounted for reforestation
funds, collected from timber companies, in the state budget as
nontax receipts. Previously, the funds were transferred into the
Ministry of Forestry's bank account and its allocation was
governed by presidential decree.

In 1996, then-president Soeharto ordered the Ministry of
Forestry to set aside Rp 23 billion from the interest of
reforestation funds to buy 10,000 shares of PT Dua Satu Tiga
Puluh (DTSP), a company set up in February 1996 to finance the
construction of the 100-seater N-2130 jet made by the state-owned
aircraft manufacturer PT Industri Pesawat Terbang Nusantara
(IPTN).

The shares were later transferred to the Bina Raharja
Foundation, a private institution established by retired civil
servants.

Soeharto also ordered the ministry to use another Rp 400
billion from the reforestry fund to help finance IPTN's
operations. The money was later converted into the government's
stake in the aircraft company.

Soeharto is DSTP's chief commissioner, while former state
minister Saadilah Mursjid is its president.

Muslimin said the ministry would also ask the state secretary
to give back Rp 100 billion in reforestation funds provided as a
loan to the People's Prosperity Savings (Takesra), a fund
established to help alleviate poverty.

He added that the state secretary had yet to respond to his
request, but that Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare and
Poverty Eradication Haryono Suyono had said Takesra had already
disbursed the funds to its program participants through cheap
loans.

Muslimin promised that the 1967 Forestry Law would be revised
to give ordinary people a better chance of benefiting from the
country's forest resources.

"The current system of forest management has yet to
accommodate small businesses, cooperatives and local people. So
we need a better system to ensure that logging activities benefit
not only large business groups," he said.

He said the 1967 Forestry Law was key to the revision of 138
government and ministerial regulations and presidential decrees.

"I hope the draft of the revised law can be proposed to the
state secretary by early July," he said. (gis)