Residents continue fight against Pelni
Residents continue fight against Pelni
JAKARTA (JP): Twenty-nine families living in a housing complex on Jl. Pembangunan, Central Jakarta, who have rejected a compensation offer from the state-owned shipping company PT Pelni, will continue their legal battle in court on March 10.
"We will submit new evidences to the Jakarta Administrative Court in the next session on March 10 and we are expecting that Judge Benjamin Mangkoedilaga will read his verdict seven days after that," Mrs. Otty Umboh said.
Mrs. Otty Umboh, a member of one of the 29 families, refuses to leave her house, which she has occupied for over 37 years, because she claims that the money offered by Pelni is too little to compensate for the loss of her house.
Pelni offered each family compensation of between Rp 27 million (US$ 12,267) and Rp 35 million, depending of the size of the land and buildings, as well as an additional Rp 1 million for moving expenses.
Mrs. Otty said that the compound had previously been home to 69 families, of whom 40 have already moved away.
According to John Mamesah, one of the residents, the company's plan to clear its housing compound is done without a legal basis because the land is not even owned by the company.
"The residents obtained the plot here after Dutch nationals, who worked for Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschapij (KPM), a Dutch shipping company, left Indonesia in 1957," John said.
John said that the Indonesian government then decided that all of the properties and employees of the Dutch shipping company had to be transferred to Pelni.
"I remember that Pelni, at that time, was a small shipping company and its president refused to accept part of the Dutch company's employees and properties, including this housing complex, on the grounds that the firm was not capable of running such a big business as KPM," he said.
The finance ministry then decided to consider the housing plot as a state property and use it as its share in Pelni.
According to Mrs. Otty, the company has no rights to expel the residents from the housing compound or even offer compensation money to the residents because the only party with the rights to sell the land is the Minister of Finance. (mas)