InfoSAWIT, JAKARTA – Chairman of KUD Panji Rukun, Village of Teluk Panji 2, Sub district of Kampung Rakyat, Regency of Labuhan Batu Selatan (Labusel), North Sumatera Province who is also as the Chairman of Jaringan Petani Sawit Berkelanjutan Indonesia (JaPSBI), H. Heri Susanto urged the president’s decision to multiply the job description in Palm Oil Plantation Fund Management Agency (PFMA) to deal with cocoa and coconut, should be postponed. He proposed PFMA should focus on palm oil to conduct smallholders replanting program (SRP) to nearly realize the targets.
SRP which is a very complex program and has many conditions, made the government’s targets difficult to be realized by the government itself and the smallholders. The cash in PFMA that some parties said was abundant, was difficult to re-absorbed for palm oil both in SRP and infrastructure program.
Heri Susanto said, KUD Panji Rukun is the union that was established from the transmigration program. With the area status out of the forest regions, or business rights, the cooperation should actually get the legal status. But he mentioned when they wanted to propose SRP this year, they had to multiply the additional conditions from Badan Pengelolaan Keuangan Haji (BPKH), Badan Nasional Sertifikat Profesi (BNSP) and Badan Pertanahan Nasional (BPN) even though KUD Panji Rukun has been a legal institution since 1996 and every member gets the title deed.
As the result, when the cooperation wanted to get fund from PFMA to get SRP, it was difficult. “We have chopped the trees, just wanted to pay the contractor of heavy tool. But the fund could not be taken until what we did was useless,” Heri said. Chairman of KUD Sentosa in Village of Teluk Panji 3, Sub district of Kampung Rakyat, Regency of Labuel said too.
Heri emphasized it would be significant for the government to focus on SRP and infrastructure program until they finished. He also proposed palm oil seeds should be provided by the plasma companies to purchase the smallholders’ plantation production. “This would help the government and deliver welfare for the smallholders. SRP would spend much,” he said. (T2)
