Soeharto's family owns 4.3m hectares of forest

Soeharto's family owns 4.3m hectares of forest

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Forestry and Plantations Muslimin
Nasution said on Thursday former president Soeharto's family
controls at least 4.3 million hectares of forest concessions in
the country.

Muslimin said in reference to his office's findings the 4.3
million hectares of forest were owned by the Soeharto family
through their stakes in 65 timber companies.

"The ownership of those timber companies is in the names of
Soeharto's children, grandchildren, brother and his sons-in-law
and daughters-in-law. There is no stake in either Soeharto's name
or Ibu Tien's (Soeharto's late wife) name," he said in the
ministry's year-end media briefing.

He said that the estimate of the size of the forest areas
controlled by the Soeharto family was based on the percentage of
their shares in the 65 timber companies.

The family has stakes of between 10 percent and 100 percent in
the 65 companies.

Muslimin, however, did not reveal the names of the timber
companies but said that most of the forest and plantation areas
controlled by these people are located in Irian Jaya, Maluku and
East Kalimantan.

Director General of Forest Utilization Waskito Soerjodibroto
said the ministry's investigators had discovered that over 9.4
million hectares of the country's forests and plantations were
owned or controlled by former president Soeharto, his family and
close associates.

"The remaining 5.1 million hectares were controlled by
Soeharto's cronies, including Prajogo and Bob Hasan, through
shares held in various companies," he said.

He said that it is difficult to trace the forestry properties
linked to Soeharto and his family and cronies, because they are
in the main owned by companies, and not directly under their
personal names.

Prajogo ranks second in the list of the country's biggest
concession holders. His Barito Pacific owns forest concessions
covering 2.7 million hectares through 27 timber companies.

Bob Hasan, a long-time golfing buddy of Soeharto, is in fourth
position. His Kalimanis Group holds logging rights to 1.63
million hectares in East Kalimantan, Aceh and Southeast Sulawesi.

Muslimin said that his ministry found a strong indication that
those properties were acquired by the Soeharto family and their
cronies through KKN (the local acronym for corruptive, collusive
and nepotistic) practices.

"Soeharto's cronies have allegedly abused their relationships
with the former first family in order to take over several timber
companies to enable them to build up giant timber groups which
control millions of hectares of forest," he said.

Exports

The country's foreign exchange earnings from exports of wood
and other forest-related products are predicted to drop sharply
in 1998/1999 fiscal year from the US$7.55 billion recorded last
fiscal year.

Waskito attributed the decline to the drop in log production
and the sluggish sales of Indonesian wood-related products due to
the economic crisis affecting several main countries of
destination.

"We are still unable to predict the foreign exchange earnings
for this fiscal year. But I believe they may not reach the
initial target of $8 billion," he said.

He said that export revenues from wood and forest-related
products only reached $727.9 million in the April-October period.
This amount excluded the foreign exchange earnings from pulp and
paper exports.

Waskito said that the country's log production dropped by 31.6
percent to 12 million cubic meters during that period, compared
to 17.6 million cubic meters in the same period of last year.

"We predict that foreign exchange earnings from wood and
forest-related products will continue to drop next fiscal year
because log production is expected to drop again by 50 percent
compared to a normal supply of over 24 million cubic meters, " he
said.

Meanwhile, Muslimin said that this year's forest fires have
ravaged around 510,177 hectares of forest, an increase from
around 300,000 hectares last year.

Around 508,000 hectares, some 99 percent of the forest razed
by the fires, are in East Kalimantan, he said. (gis)