InfoSAWIT, JAKARTA – The Great Attorney searched the office of Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MEF), Thursday 3 October 2024. It was about the corruption assumption about illegal palm oil plantation governance in 2005 to 2024. Head of Public Relation, The Great Attorney, Harli Siregar said that the witnesses would be scheduled to deliver information.
Achmad Surambo, Director of Sawit Watch worried that there was no transparency in palm oil plantation bleaching. He thought, the open information from the government was so minimal even Minister of Environment and Forestry legalized the publication process. “We tried to get official data by sending official documents to MEF but there is no response positively. This raised concern that there would be potential corruptions,” he said in the official statement, as InfoSAWIT quoted, Monday (14/10/2024).
He also said the sentences of the Supreme Court on 21 December 2023 that rejected material examination on the Government’s Regulation Number 24 / 2021 about The Procedures for Administrative Sanction in Forestry Sector. “By the sentence, we know that only few legal subjects would get the sanction. From 3.690 legal subjects registered, only 17 got forest releases and 35 would get administrative sanction,” he said.
In detail, the administrative fine to pay would be about Rp 239 billion, forest resources provision or provisi sumber daya hutan (PSDH) would be Rp 61 billion, and reforestation fund would be Rp 13 million. Achmad said palm oil plantation bleaching would not maximally run and would potentially have the space to make corruption.
Ahmad Zazali, Chief of Pusat Hukum dan Resolusi Konflik (PURAKA) said that the organization analyzed the administrative sanction implementation for the planters without having legal permits until August 2022. He said that the cases were too slow to get the solution. From 1.192 legal subjects that should complete the data, only 240 realized it, and 15 legal subjects paid the fine.
Zazali emphasized it would need transparency in palm oil plantation bleaching. “The public should know what companies would get the bleaching, how much the numbers are, how much the companies have paid. There could be bribe and gratification about the numbers of fine,” he said.
Gunawan, Senior Advisor of Indonesia Human Rights Committee for Social Justice (IHCS) said that the sentence of the Supreme Court should be reviewed namely about the legal when sentencing. He thought, if the sentence was based on Undang-Undang Cipta Kerja, it was un-constitutional with some conditions. “Palm oil plantation bleaching process needs improvement. Do not let the policy would open the chance to make corruption,” Gunawan said.
Back to Achmad Surambo, he also said that palm oil plantations in Indonesia laid on about 18,15 million hectares. He hoped the search in MEF would deliver good news to accomplish palm oil plantations/industrial governance. “There are times to improve palm oil plantation/industrial governance and would need full commitment from every party,” he said. (T2)