Sale of palm oil plantations not yet final
Sale of palm oil plantations not yet final
JAKARTA (AFP): Indonesian Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri
was quoted as saying on Monday the sale of 25 palm oil
plantations to Malaysia's Kumpulan Guthrie Bhd. was not yet
final.
"The Vice President has firmly said that it (the sale) is not
yet final," Indonesian Association of Farmers (HKTI) executive
Bambang Warih said after meeting Megawati.
"She even said that she will do her best to hold the case for
further negotiations."
The reported statement by the vice president came after
Coordinating Minister for the Economy Rizal Ramli announced last
week that the transaction had been closed, and Guthrie had handed
over the money.
Ramli said then that Guthrie had paid US$368 million to the
Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) for the plantations,
also taking on 500 billion rupiah ($48.6 million) in outstanding
debt.
"The vice president said that it should be renegotiated and
she will herself make efforts ... so that (the plantations) be
sold in consideration of justice and for the sake of national
interest," Warih said.
HKTI chairman Siswono Yudohusodo said at the same time that if
the deal remained as it was, Guthrie should abide by local
regulations.
He was referring to the obligation of large plantations to
develop them under the so-called "plasma" scheme where 30 percent
is held by the company and the rest by smallholders who are
provided with credits by the company to later sell their harvest
to the company for processing.
"If it has already been sold to Guthrie, then we will keep
asking them (Guthrie) to allot 70 percent to the (smallholders)
in line with the regulations," Siswono said.
"We will do everything in our power, if Guthrie does not abide
by the regulations in the region. We will file a class action
suit in court," he added.
He also said that should Guthrie opt to ignore the
regulations, it would face "dangerous social problems" in the
long term, because of the plasma-scheme farmers and existing land
disputes related to the plantations.
Siswono called the IBRA sale of the some 262,000 hectares from
22 companies of the Salim Group "unfair" because it was done in a
single package, preventing national businesses from taking part
in the sale.
The sale was among the biggest for IBRA, which has been
accused of sluggishness in liquidizing billions of dollars of
state assets to pay the country's debt, budget deficit, and hefty
bank restructuring costs.
The House of Representatives had initially opposed the Guthrie
sale, arguing that it would undermine Indonesia's position as the
world's second biggest producer of crude palm oil after Malaysia.
Ramli responded to the criticism by saying Guthrie would be
subject to local laws.