Resettlement drive lacks coordination

Resettlement drive lacks coordination

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Transmigration Siswono Yudohusodo ordered his officials yesterday to get their act together, saying that many of the errors made in the government's resettlement program could be put down to poor coordination.

Siswono said many settlers had fallen victim to the lack of coordination among the government agencies handling the transmigration programs.

There have been cases, he said, in which settlers had arrived at their destination to find that the land allotted to them was not ready. This had occurred in spite of the fact that the settlers had received the final go-ahead from the local ministry office to make the move, he said.

He said timing was often poor, with settlers arriving after the planting season, so that they had virtually nothing to do until the next season.

Such incidents served to dampen the settlers' spirits, the minister said during a meeting with 129 top ministry officials. The proper role of the ministry, he said, was to "help them build their dreams" of a better future.

He also called for better coordination with provincial governments regarding the selection of land for settlers.

The transmigration program calls for the resettlement of thousands of families from Java and Bali, both already regarded as overcrowded, to Indonesia's less densely populated islands, such as Sumatra, Kalimantan and Irian Jaya.

The government plans to resettle 77,000 families in the current 1995/1996 fiscal year, which began on April 1. In 1994/1995, the government resettled 68,304 families, including 18,904 who joined the "self-reliant" transmigration program as opposed to the one that is fully supported by the government.

Siswono said officials of the ministry should conduct more field trips to find out the real conditions in the transmigration sites.

He said there should be better communication between transmigration officials in the sending provinces and those in the destination provinces.

There had been cases of letters of enquiry from one office to another going unanswered for six months, he said.

The minister called for the exercise of greater control by officials over the way in which certain facilities, such as land and houses, were parceled out among the settlers.

"There have been cases when these facilities have fallen into the hands of relatives of the local village heads, who already had property," he said.

Siswono urged regional transmigration officials to stop the practice of burning down forests to clear land for settlement sites, describing it as "uncivilized."

Such burning was blamed for some of the brushfires that sent thick smog over most of Kalimantan and neighboring Malaysia and Singapore last year.

The minister suggested that trees be felled and processed into chips which could then be sold to pulp factories.

Siswono conferred awards to three provincial heads of the ministry in recognition of their successful management of their parts of the transmigration program. Jambi came first in the category of more than 3,000 families last year, Maluku won in the 1,000 to 3,000 category, while Lampung was honored in the category for resettlement of less than 1,000 families. (anr)