InfoSAWIT, JAKARTA – Director of Sawit Watch, Achmad Surambo told fund biodiesel industries has been allocating since B20 until B35. The subsidy program significantly delivered profits for palm oil wealthy men during 2019 – 2021, such as, Wilmar about Rp 22,56 trillion, Musim Mas about Rp 11,34 trillion, Royal Golden Eagle about Rp 6,41 trillion, Sinar Mas about Rp 5,53 trillion, Permata Hijau about Rp 5,52 trillion, Darmex Agro about Rp 5,4 trillion, Louis Dreyfus about Rp 2,9 trillion, Sungai Budi about Rp 2,56 trillion, Best Industry about Rp 2 trillion, and First Resources about Rp 1,9 trillion.
What the Attorney is investigating a corruption assumption in palm oil fund that Palm Oil Plantation Fund Management Agency (PFMA) managed in 2015 – 2022, and though the case has been in investigation phase, the Attorney does not decide every suspect in it.
Achmad Surambo also said, total palm oil fund in crude palm oil (CPO) levy in 2019 -2021 reached Rp 70,99 trillion. In the same priod, subsidy to palm oil corporates which got integration with PFMA in biodiesel production reached Rp 68 trillion.
"Wilmar is the biggest biodiesel subsidy receiper. It reached three times more than the export levy that PFMA gathered. The difference between export levy and biodiesel subsidy delivered surplus for Wilmar that reached Rp 14,8 trillion," he said, as in the official statement to InfoSAWIT, Monday (25/9/2023).
The irony is that the surplus for big corporates, such as, Wilmar, is not the same with fund allocation for smallholders’ needs. In 2015 – 2019, smallholders got Rp 2,7 trillion to smallholders replanting program; Rp 140,6 billion to develop human resources. If the numbers are multiplied, they did not reach 10% of Rp 47,28 trillion that PFMA gathered in the period.
As the output, Andi Muttaqien, Executive Director of Satya Bumi, emphasized that the investigator team (of the Attorney) should really investigate the goals why PFMA was established in the first place by comparing the reality to what happened in 2015 to 2022. "The fund that PFMA gathered should be given back as the previous mandates, such as, to fund the upstream sectors (replanting, developing human resource, research and development, developing smallholders’ plantation productivity, enable them to get better economy, and be part of commercial ecosystem in the long term,” Andi said.
In the context of Farmer’s Day that is commemorated on every 24 September, he reminded that the smallholders’ sovereignty would have something to do with palm oil industrial development, contribution to economic development nationally. “That is why the fund should be the subsidy for smallholders, not for the corporates to enjoy. Export levy from the companies should not be (fully) returned to them,” Andi said. (T2)
