The East Java Police on Wednesday affirmed that they had no intention of dropping a criminal case against a drilling company believed to be partially responsible for the mud volcano that has displaced tens of thousands in Sidoarjo, East Java.
The statement came after Attorney General Hendarman Supanji said on Monday that his office was certain it could not win a criminal case against the company, PT Lapindo Brantas, and therefore had no desire to bring it to court. (more…)
The Attorney General’s Office confirmed on Monday that it would not pursue a criminal case in the devastating mud volcano disaster in East Java allegedly involving PT Lapindo Brantas, a company owned by the family of senior minister Aburizal Bakrie.
“We don’t want to repeat the defeat in the environment trial against Newmont,” Attorney General Hendarman Supandji said in a hearing with lawmakers. (more…)
Victims of the Lapindo mudflow disaster remain skeptical of the new pledge made by the Bakrie Family to pay disaster compensation in phases.
Suwito and Pitanto, who as leaders of the Renokenongo Mudflow Victims Association represented 465 families who have been living in temporary shelters at the Porong market building for almost three years since their homes were destroyed by the disaster, stressed that the victims did not accept nor reject Lapindo’s new commitment, which they said the company could break whenever they wanted to. (more…)
A Durham University scientist has played a key role in helping determine the cause of the Java mud volcano, Lusi.
Two years’ of global public debate over the possible causes of Lusi has finally concluded. A resounding vote of international petroleum geologists from around the globe, including Durham University geologist Professor Richard Davies, concluded the mud volcano was triggered by drilling of a nearby gas exploration well.
This may have implications for compensation of the local population affected. (more…)
The University of Durham, in northeastern England, said 74 top scientists in petroleum geology debated Lusi at a conference in Cape Town, South Africa on Tuesday.
Four experts put forward varying hypotheses, including the university’s professor of geology, Richard Davies, it said in a press release.
Forty-two scientists voted in favour of Davies’ argument that the cause lay with a gas exploration well, Banjar-Panji-1, that was being drilled in the area by oil and gas company Lapindo Brantas, it said. (more…)
TEMPO Interactive, Sidoarjo: Around 500 people from four villages — Siring Barat, Jatirejo Barat, Mindi in Porong sub-district, and Besuki Timur in Jabon sub-district – resumed their protests at the former Porong toll road or what has now become the under belly of the toll bridge in Besuki village.
They held communal prayers at the site. “We are still demanding the same thing. The four villages must be included in the map like other villages,” said Irsyad, Besuki Timur residents’ coordinator.
Irsyad said the four villages are now uninhabitable because half the areas were affected by the mudflow while the other half were damaged by flammable gas.
The village most affected by the mudflow is Besuki Timur, while the gas hit Siring Barat, Jatirejo Barat, and Mindi. For this reason, the residents have urged the House of Representatives (DPR) to allocate a budget on their behalf, when the 2009 National Budget is drafted.
ROHMAN
Sumber: http://www.tempo.co.id/hg/nasional/2008/10/29/brk,20081029-142916,uk.html
Thursday, 16 October 2008 – Government companies step up to buy shares in a flailing family group.
As it has in the past, the Indonesia government stepped in Wednesday to stop the unravelling of the empire of the politically powerful Chief Welfare Minister Aburizal Bakrie with a deal to allow government-owned companies to buy shares in Bakrie concerns – and apparently let the Bakries stay in control.
Shares in Bakrie & Brothers and its five subsidiaries, PT Bumi Resources, Energi Mega, Bakrieland, Bakrie Telecom and Bakrie Sumatera Plantation were suspended from trading on October 6 amid wild gyrations in their share price that wiped out 30 percent of their value, with a devastating effect on the rest of the local market. The Indonesian Stock Exchange was closed for three days amid the carnage after falling by 21 percent, the biggest fall in 20 years.
The market reopened Monday but without the Bakrie companies, which remained suspended while the group said it was working on a deal to sell a raft of assets — including a stake in coal miner Bumi, at one time the biggest company on the exchange – to pay off $1.2 billion in debt. Shares in Bumi are down 74 per cent since their peak in June.
However, the Minister for State Enterprises, Sofyan Djalil said Wednesday that state-owned PT Aneka Tambang and PT Tambang Batubara Bukit Asam would be allowed to buy shares in Bumi if they want, which almost certainly means they will. That way the Bakrie family may still be able to maintain control over the company despite a reduction in their 35 percent stake.
That decision is likely to be greeted by less than enthusiasm on the part of the electorate, and could spell trouble for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who has made erasing corruption and cronyism a major goal of his administration, so far with less than notable success. Although he has moved up recently in the polls, Yudhoyono is locked in a close race with former President Megawati Sukarnoputri in the runup to the presidential election next April.
While the Bakrie enterprises are hardly as important to Indonesia’s economy as Fannie Mae or AIG are to the US, the alternative to saving Bakrie is not saving him, something that could be politically unappetizing for Yudhoyono, who so far doesn’t appear to consider himself independently powerful enough to let the Bakrie group go.
Despite the fact that he was a general himself, Yudhoyono got considerable backing for his 2004 election came from Kadin Indonesia, the Indonesia Chamber of Commerce, which has long-standing links to Sofyan’s State-Owned Enterprises Ministry.
Kadin is a national network that reaches across Indonesia and although it isn’t a political party it is comparable in reach to Golkar, Megawati’s Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP) or Tentara Nasional Indonesia, the armed forces. Golkar, the biggest electoral party and once the vehicle of the late strongman Suharto, backed the former armed forces commanding general Wiranto, leaving Yudhoyono to look elsewhere for support. The chamber was important to his election plans and allowed him to cast himself as a friend of business.
Bakrie is also close to Vice President Jusuf Kalla, a man in an uneasy relationship with Yudhoyono and who could easily turn into a presidential rival. Bakrie and Kalla represent an Indonesia of an earlier era that Yudyono can’t quite shake despite his best efforts, nor can Indonesia with its culture of corruption.
Earlier this year, although scientists insisted the disaster was caused by dodgy work, the government took responsibility for the multi-billion dollar cleanup of Indonesia’s worst-ever environmental disaster, which occurred in 2006 when a gas well being drilled by PT Lapindo Brantas, a Bakrie-controlled company, blew out into a catastrophic mudflow that so far has displaced 75,000 villagers and wrecked a vast swath of territory in East Java. Bakrie has so far paid out Rp4 trillion to the displaced villagers.
Whatever the rescue package looks like this time around, the power of the Bakrie Group will almost certainly be diminished, in the short term at least, as it struggles under a mountain of debt. There has been much speculation over the past year about Bakrie’s plans to rival Qatar Telecom for a stake in the country’s second biggest mobile phone player Indosat and do a deal with three local governments to eventually takeover the profitable Batu Hijau copper and gold mine, now operated by US mining giant Newmont.
But the Bakrie family will instead be focused on disentangling itself from debt arrangements, where shares in its subsidiaries have been used as collateral. Those pledged shares, initially valued at US$$6 billion, slumped to US$1.35 billion on October 6, creating the current mess.
While the focus has been on the Bakrie family, the impact of the global financial crisis on Indonesia is much broader. Investors around the world are now officially risk-averse, and that means pulling money out of emerging markets like Indonesia, despite its strong economic fundamentals and 6.5 percent annual gross domestic product growth.
Earlier this week, the government boosted deposit insurance to cover accounts up to Rp2 billion (US$203,000) from Rp100 million previously, in a bid to avoid a run on the banks. Bank Indonesia has also eased the rules for banks raising short-term funds in an effort to increase liquidity.
The government also reduced its forecast 2009 budget deficit to 1.3 per cent of GDP from 1.7 per cent. That means it will require less funds to finance the deficit as selling bonds is harder to do in the current environment with investors demanding significantly higher yields.
Despite these measures, the market is expected to be volatile in the short-term, buffeted by other world markets and as it awaits a resolution on the Bakrie companies.
Anton Gunawan, chief economist, Bank Danamon says the stock market regulator needs to crack down on speculative trading.
“I think the stock market authorities need to go faster in trying to punish speculators who really disrupt the market,” he said. “That is the key thing that will bring back confidence.”
“The jitters are still there. Domestic investors are also panicking. It’s not just the foreign investors who want to pull out.”
(c) Asia Sentinel
A number of state and private companies are exploring the possibility of forming a consortium to purchase a stake in the Bakrie family’s most valuable company and the world’s largest exporter of thermal coal, PT
Bumi Resources.
State miners PT Tambang Batubara Bukit Asam (PTBA), PT Aneka Tambang (Antam) and PT Timah are in serious talks to seek a way of acquiring some 35 percent of the family’s Bumi stake, estimated at Rp 14 trillion (US$1.42 billion).
Antam corporate secretary Bimo Budi Satriyo told The Jakarta Post Thursday some of the state firms involved were still studying the plan, and no progress had been reached thus far.
“This is not going to be an easy decision. We want to make sure the purchase will benefit the companies. We also need to seek sources of funding,” he said.
When asked about the exact time for the arrangement, Bimo said it depended on PTBA, which was the most active in trying to secure the stake as it bids to add its coal reserves into the firm’s portfolio.
PTBA executives could not be reached for comment.
State enterprises minister Soyfan Djalil said the deal would be based on a business-to-business agreement, and the government would not interfere, other than by approving the deal.
“The state firms need to team up with the private sector to acquire the stake because the cost will be huge. This is a strategic decision for the companies to take. We will not interfere,” he said.
The powerful Bakrie family, headed by none other than Coordinating Minister for the People’s Welfare Aburizal Bakrie, is being forced to sell assets to help settle financial obligations to a number of creditors.
The family’s flagship PT Bakrie & Brothers, the nation’s largest publicly listed investment company, borrowed $1.43 billion in short-term loans between April and September from, among others, Oddickson Finance, JPMorgan, and India’s ICICI Bank for refinancing, funding investment and working capital.
Shares in Bakrie units were put up as collateral, including in Bumi, plantation firm PT Bakrie Sumatra Plantation and energy firm PT Energy Mega Persada, whose subsidiary Lapindo Brantas sparked the massive mudflow disaster in Sidoarjo, East Java, in 2006.
But the plunge in the value of the shares following the global financial downturn has sharply slashed the collateral value, forcing Bakrie to either pump in fresh capital or face the risk of losing control of the pledged shares.
On Oct. 12, Bakrie & Brothers offered investors shares in its units to help raise some $1.2 billion to repay its debts.
Bakrie announced late Thursday it had completed the first phase of the offering.
Avenue Luxembourg SARL has taken an additional 15 percent stake worth $46 million in PT Bakrieland Development, and Longines Offshore Co. Ltd., through the Royal Bank of Scotland, has purchased a 5.6 percent stake worth $10 million in PT Bakrie Sumatra Plantation.
Bakrie also announced that negotiations with a domestic consortium interested in buying PT Bakrie Telecom were still underway, as well as a discussion with a number of local and foreign strategic buyers for Bumi.
Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) president director Erry Firmansyah said three Bakrie companies would be allowed to resume trading on Friday, as they were expected to submit a complete disclosure of the ongoing stake offerings.
“We need to know how the restructuring process is being settled and who the buyers are. We will not lift the suspension until there is a clear disclosure,” he said, refusing to name the firms set to resume trading.
Besides its prominent role at the helm of the country’s biggest business empire, the Bakrie family is also politically powerful, having helped finance President Susilo Bambang’s campaign in the 2004 presidential campaign. (iwp)
Ika Krismantari, The Jakarta Post
Sumber: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/10/17/state-firms-teaming-help-out-bakries.html
The Bakrie family, headed by welfare minister Aburizal Bakrie, is unlikely to go bust any time soon, as the government ponders allowing state firms to buy stakes in the clan’s companies to help avoid a possible debt default.
A failure by the family to secure immediate funding means it could risk losing the ownership of its crown jewel companies.
State enterprises minister Sofyan Djalil said the government could allow state miners PT Tambang Batubara Bukit Asam (PTBA) and PT Aneka Tambang (Antam) to acquire stakes in Bakrie unit PT Bumi Resources, the nation’s biggest coal producer.
“If they (PTBA and Antam) have the money to buy the shares and the price is good, we will let them,” Sofyan said after a meeting at the Presidential Palace on Wednesday.
However, Sofyan, who served as President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s campaign manager during the 2004 presidential election, denied reports the go-ahead to buy Bakrie shares was aimed at helping the group’s companies from being taken over entirely by other investors.
On Oct. 12, Bakrie’s flagship PT Bakrie & Brothers, the country’s largest publicly listed company, announced the offering of shares in its units, including a 10 percent stake in publicly listed Bumi.
The company claims the offering is aimed at helping raise some US$1.2 billion to pay all outstanding debts, some of which are not due for the next two years.
While Bakrie remains deliberately vague about the reason for the early payment, there are widespread reports the company is in dire need of cash to help prevent shares of its firms pledged as collateral to creditors from losing their value as a result of the global financial meltdown led by the credit crisis in the United States.
Bakrie & Brothers borrowed $1.43 billion in short-term loans between April and September from, among others, Oddickson Finance, JPMorgan, and India’s ICICI Bank for refinancing, funding investment and working capital.
Shares in Bakrie units were put up as collateral, including in Bumi, plantation firm PT Bakrie Sumatra Plantation and energy firm PT Energy Mega Persada, whose subsidiary Lapindo Brantas sparked the massive mudflow disaster in Sidoarjo, East Java, in 2006.
The value of the shares pledged was initially estimated at $6 billion, before plunging to $1.35 billion on Oct. 6, with creditors demanding Bakrie top up the covenant to assure the stake value remained intact, or risk being seized.
With Bakrie refusing to disclose its debt arrangements, the Indonesia Stock Exchange is still suspending trading in the shares of six Bakrie companies, blamed by Finance Minister Sri Mulyani for exacerbating the recent havoc in the stock market.
Help from the government will mean a lot for the Bakrie family, noting Aburizal’s role as a key financier of the Yudhoyono presidential campaign in 2004.
Aburizal also played a major role in putting Vice President Jusuf Kalla, also chairman of the Golkar Party, on the national radar back in the 1990s when Kalla was a relatively unknown businessman from eastern Indonesia.
While Kalla worked his way up the ladder, Aburizal was already an iconic native tycoon, locally termed pengusaha pribumi.
If Sofyan Djalil does finally move to save the Bakrie business empire, it will be the third time the family has been rescued by the government; the first was a financial bailout during the late-1997 Asian financial crisis, and the second was over the Lapindo debacle.
In response to questions over the troubles plaguing the empire, Aburizal merely said everything was actually in order.
“Everything is secure,” he said before a meeting with Yudhoyono.
Desy Nurhayati, The Jakarta Post
Sumber: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/10/16/govt-mulls-helping-out-bakrie-repay-favor.html
Sidoarjo (ANTARA News) – Warga korban luapan lumpur Lapindo Brantas Inc. baik yang mendukung program pembayaran ganti rugi dengan cash and carry maupun cash and resettlement kini makin resah, karena hingga kini belum mendapat transfer pencairan dana 20 persen uang muka.
Sebelumnya, warga korban lumpur yang mengungsi di Pasar Porong Baru (PPB) juga resah, karena pasca Perjanjian Ikatan Jual Beli (PIJB) uang muka ganti rugi 20 persen, seharusnya 14 hari kemudian ditransfer, namun hingga kini tak kunjung masuk.
Informasi yang dihimpun ANTARA News, Kamis menyebutkan, kini korban lumpur yang pro cash and resetlement pasca Pengikatan Perjanjian Jual Beli (PPJB) akhir tahun 2007 sampai penandatangan uang kembalian tahun 2008, juga mengaku belum dapat transfer uang kembalian dari PT Minarak Lapindo Jaya (MLJ).
Warga sudah mengkonfirmasi ke PT MLJ, namun hanya dijawab PT MLJ kini sedang terimbas dampak krisis global.
Amir Suhadak, salah seorang warga yang mendukung cash and resettelement mengatakan, sebetulnya jawaban PT MLJ itu menambah keresahan warga, karena warga khawatir tidak dibayar.
“Berdasarkan ketentuan yang tertulis, maksimal pembayaran dua bulan, setelah tanda tangan. Tapi, hingga kini uang kembalian belum masuk ke rekening kami,” katanya.
Menurut dia, sebelum Lebaran 2008, dirinya pernah menanyakan masalah ini ke kantor PT MLJ di Surabaya, dan dijanjikan setelah Lebaran. Namun, ternyata hingga kini belum cair.
Sementara itu, Vice President Relation PT Lapindo Brantas Inc (LBI) Yuniwati Teryana mengakui krisis global membawa dampak pada perusahaannya. Namun, PT LBI tetap akan mengutamakan tanggung jawab kepada warga.
“Lapindo akan tetap melunasi ganti rugi korban lumpur. Tanggungjawab kepada korban lumpur akan tetap menjadi prioritas,” katanya berjanji. (*)
© Antara
The Sidoarjo regency administration is seeking a guarantee of safety from the government-backed Sidoarjo Mudflow Handling Agency (BPLS) that the dumping of hot mud into the River Porong will not trigger floods.
Since October, 2006, BPLS has redirected 69 million cubic meters of hot mud into the river, triggering sedimentation that could lead to floods during the rainy season, expected to start in November.
Sidoarjo regent Win Hendrarso warned BPLS that the increasingly shallow water on the riverbed as a result of the sedimentation could cause the river to overflow during the rainy season and his administration did not want mudflow victims to suffer yet more from such an incident.
“We don’t want to see floods as a result of a domino effect from the mudflow dump site. According to reports from the regency monitoring team and local people, residents are facing this threat because part of the river near Besuki village is now covered by mud,” he said when making a field tour to the mudflow-affected villages here on Tuesday.
He also said his staff would ask BPLS to take risk-prevention measures in case local people faced flooding, in anticipation of possible floods during the rainy season.” I don’t want any more people to fall victim to a new disaster in the future.”
Chairman of the expert team of the 10 November Institute of Technology (ITS) of Surabaya I Nyoman Sutantra said his team had frequently warned BPLS of the risks and that was why they had strongly opposed the dumping into the river.
“If BPLS continues dumping the mud into the river, the regencies of Sidoarjo, Pasuruan and Surabaya will be inundated during the incoming rainy season,” he told The Jakarta Post.
Sutantra deplored that BPLS has ignored the new method which his team had proposed as a better solution to stop the mud leaks and to handle the mud currently dumped into the river.
The expert team has called on BPLS to reroute the mudflow into the lower wetlands which later could be developed into farmland but the agency ignored this because it could not access adequate funds to acquire the wetlands now used by local farmers for shrimp and fish ponds.
Deputy chief of BPLS operational affairs Soffian Hadi defended the agency’s dump site policy, saying the river has functioned as the means for dumping the mud into the sea.
“Even during the rainy season, it will be easier for the agency to dump the mud into the sea via the river,” he said adding that during the rainy season, a stronger current could take away at least 1,600 cubic meters per second into the sea.
He said that the dumping of hot mud into the river has been reduced up to 40 percent and five heavy pumps were now deployed everyday to help push the stream of water to take the mud away.
Indra Harsaputra, The Jakarta Post
Sumber: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/10/08/safety-sought-sidoarjo-mudflow-agency.html
Friday, 24 October 2008 – A defining struggle breaks out between a reformer and the king of the country’s old guard. In one direction beckons people like Sri Mulyani Indrawati, the country’s finance minister. Clean, capable, she’s the anti-politician Indonesians love and who foreign investors can’t stop talking about.
In one direction beckons people like Sri Mulyani Indrawati, the country’s finance minister. Clean, capable, she’s the anti-politician Indonesians love and who foreign investors can’t stop talking about.
Barely a month passes without Mulyani winning some sort of global gong; this month she’s Euromoney Magazine’s Finance Minister of the Year – for the second time. At 46, Mulyani symbolises the Indonesia that is possible, one that works properly, a competent resourceful Indonesia that wants to prosper away from the chronic corruption and cronyism that pollutes from the country’s grubby past.
Gesturing the other way is the tendency represented by Aburizal Bakrie, Indonesia’s richest man (or at least he was until markets melted down). He sits with Mulyani in President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s cabinet, somewhat perversely as the minister primarily responsible for Indonesia’s poor, the Co-Ordinating Minister for People’s Welfare. Garrulous, oleaginous and a virtual law unto himself, the 62 year-old Bakrie is a holdover from the Suharto era, when the extent of one’s fortune tended to be determined by one’s proximity to the kleptator.
Bakrie is the patriarch of the resources-to-telecoms Bakrie Brothers group, Indonesia’s biggest corporate entity. He’s in the cabinet because he and his colleagues at Kadin, Indonesia’s crony-heavy chamber of commerce, helped SBY’s 2004 tilt at the presidency, along with South Sulawesi’s wealthy patron Jusuf Kalla and the backing of Suharto’s old fief, Golkar, now a Bakrie-Kalla domain. The vice-presidency was Kalla’s payoff while Bakrie became Minister for the Economy. Foxes and henhouses, warned horrified Indonesians at the time.
A decade after the fall of Suharto, Mulyani speaks for the new Indonesia, where government business is transacted cleanly, transparently and democratically. She is regarded as fearless, overhauling two of the most corrupt and inefficient institutions in Indonesia; customs and the tax office. At the customs office, she removed 1,500 staff and replaced them with 800 new officers, paying them several times more while warning that if they took backhanders justice would be swift and harsh. Efficiency was improved but vested interests who liked getting their goods nodded through – for a ‘fine’ of course – were not pleased.
Bakrie is old Indonesia, operating in the shadows. Now the two of them seem to be on a collision course. Jakarta has been agog with their gathering feud since the financial crisis from the US subprime meltdown started rippling through Indonesia. The Bakrie group has been a victim of the growing economic crisis. Most of the listed component companies have spent more time suspended from stock exchange trading than having their shares transacted. Last week, the Indonesian government allowed state-owned companies to buy into stricken Bakrie companies, which are facing share price-linked loan defaults. It looks suspiciously like a bailout, the third Bakrie will have enjoyed.
Mulyani wasn’t pleased. “I am the Finance Minister, my job is to protect the state fund,” she reportedly told Kadin. “Companies have a job to protect their own financial affairs. If they fail, it is their fault and they deserve to go bust.”
This week the feud broke out all over the Indonesian media. On Wednesday, the Jakarta Post led with the story “Efforts Seen to Unseat Sri Mulyani.”
The rub was in the second paragraph; “Efforts to topple the ‘iron lady’ intensified after she turned down requests from a major conglomerate for government assistance in saving its business empire in the wake of the global financial meltdown, sources said.” Bakrie wasn’t named but no other “major conglomerate” has been requesting government assistance in recent times.
On Thursday, the government was forced to deny that the cabinet was “cracking.” The paper also reported a Wednesday meeting at VP Kalla’s office on the crisis facing the Bakrie group. It was attended by Kalla, Mulyani, central bank governor Boediono and Aburizal Bakrie, who has long insisted that he has no day-to-day involvement in the business affairs of his family’s empire.
The dilemma is a delicate one for SBY. The economy is fragile in the jittery global environment and he needs an internationally trusted figure like Mulyani to help salve foreign investors. A career technocrat, Mulyani has no domestic political muscle to speak of. With the election coming up next April, SBY needs Bakrie – or at least someone with his resources – but does not necessarily want him, for all that he represents.
But Bakrie isn’t as rich as he used to be, and will be even poorer if his empire, the basis of his political power, fails. The Bakrie Group isn’t a Fannie Mae or AIG but a failure of such a big corporate entity could ripple into a wider Indonesian economy.
There was also the matter of PT Lapindo Brantas, the Bakrie-owned gas company whose disastrous gas well blowout in East Java kicked off a mud volcano that so far has displaced 75,000 villagers from their homes and turned into the country’s biggest environmental disaster. Lapindo Brantas claims the rupture was caused by a distant earthquake fault. The government may have held its nose, but although Bakrie has so far paid out Rp4 trillion to the displaced villagers, Jakarta has assumed responsibility for cleaning up the disaster and the Environment Ministry even awarded Lapindo Brantas its “Oscar” for complying with safety and environmental standards.
The gulf between Mulyani and Bakrie was evidenced when Suharto died in January. A stream of deathbed wellwishers made their way to the Suharto compound on Jalan Cendana to bid the old tyrant farewell. Aburizal Bakrie was prominent among them. Sri Mulyani wasn’t. The Bakrie family got rich in the Suharto era. Mulyani was an academic, and later represented Indonesia at the IMF, hardly the most popular multilateral agency in Indonesia after its handling of the mid-1990s financial crisis, when Suharto fell. Her own nationalism has been called into question because of her stint with the IMF.
Bakrie’s feud with Mulyani comes as SBY pulls ahead in opinion polls from former President Megawati Sukarnoputri. But it also comes as Parliament debates how much electoral support presidential aspirants will need to allow their candidacy. Bakrie’s Golkar and Megawati’s PDI-P dominate Parliament. SBY’s Democrat Party does not. Golkar and PDI-P could push through whatever deal they concoct. But Golkar’s problem is that no one in its leadership ranks is very popular. And the Indonesian electorate seem to be wising up to Megawati, a gormless shopaholic who seems to think a famous family name is birthright enough for a second term.
Where this all goes is hard to predict. A rising force is the Islamist Prosperous Justice Party, the Partai Keadilan Sejahtera, or PKS, which speaks for 10-15 percent of the population and is gathering more support on its mosque-based anti-corruption platform. The PKS is behind the recent anti-pornography bill, which has divided this secular nation. SBY has a sprinkle of religious parties represented in his Cabinet, and could draw closer to the PKS if Parliament makes odious rules on candidacy qualifications.
On the road ahead is next April’s presidential election. SBY wants another five-year term, and so does Megawati, whose first stint in the Istana Merdeka from 2001-04 was hardly electric. Indonesia descended to near the bottom of Transparency International’s graft league table, while bomb-happy Islamists threatened to transform Indonesia into Afghanistan East.
SBY won a landslide in 2004 campaigning to rid of both terrorism and corruption. The terror part he has largely succeeded with. Abu Bakr Bashir’s Jemaah Islamiah movement and its imitators have been largely neutralised, many of their adherents turned. Radical madrassas have been shut down or neutered, in what is the most telling success of the SBY era.
Corruption has proved trickier to tame. True, Indonesia no longer languishes in the bottom five of the TI table but position 142 of the 190 countries ranked hardly makes Indonesia Scandinavian in its regard for public office. Still, it’s better than it was. Public officials from across the islands are now getting their collars felt.
Jakarta’s newspapers daily titillate with tearful confessions and fascinating detail as to how deep-seated corruption is; parliamentarians for sale, and the central bank too. The fact that it is being publicly aired is evidence Indonesians crave to be normal, to want civil society. Whether Mulyani goes or stays will go a long way to letting them know if that is in the cards.
(c) Asia Sentinel
Hundreds of houses in three villages were inundated with mud in Sidoardjo in February, and thousands of people were displaced from their homes, forcing them to live in makeshift tents erected along an abandoned toll road.
While the sturdier structures in the three villages — Besuki, Kedung Cangkring and Renokenongo — were left inundated with mud and are now homes to various animals, the wooden houses were merely turned into rubble.
“Most residents no longer have the courage to enter the ghost-like houses. We have left them to serve as silent witnesses to the disaster that has devastated not only our assets but also our community and future,” 54-year-old Paimin of Besuki told The Jakarta Post here Saturday.
Another resident, 80-year old Muana, said that for the past eight months her family had lived without possessions and without hope.
“I rely on my two children and their three grandchildren who are now staying with me in this bamboo hut,” she said.
Muana’s 40-year-old daughter Munifah and 35-year-old son Ismael and their families have been living in the four meter by six meter hut since the mudflow submerged their makeshift houses in Besuki.
They have made their livings as street vendors at a nearby housing compound ever since Lapindo Brantas Inc., an energy company that operates the mining site in Porong district that triggered the devastation, stopped distributing humanitarian aid last May.
“We were hopeless and desperate when our aging mother contracted diarrhea. We had to borrow some money from neighbors so we could take her to a doctor at the nearby public health center,” said Munifah, who looks far older than her eight years.
She said many people, including her mother, had contracted diarrhea after consuming water from ground wells that had been contaminated by toxic mud.
Ismael said the village’s residents had received nothing from the government or Lapindo despite promises of immediate compensation for mudflow victims made by BPLS, the government agency tasked with handling the disaster.
“BPLS and the village head have frequently come here to make sure that the government will pay the compensation soon but so far we have been given empty promises,” he said.
Many people claiming they are refugees, he said, have filed complaints with BPLS and the local administration. They attempted to stage a protest against Lapindo, he said, but the company’s middlemen thwarted the attempt.
He said the damage to his house and farmland had been assessed by the local government, and that he and all of the other village residents had been informed of the amount of compensation they were due, but that they had never received it.
“We are not beggars but we have been left without answers. The government should have paid the compensation 14 days after the deal (on compensation payment) was signed,” he said, adding that the deal was signed in early August.
Besuki, Kedung Cangkring and Renokenongo are among nine villages that were devastated by the February mudflow.
Four villages were destroyed by a mudflow that hit on May 29, 2006, creating a giant lake of mud.
Some of the residents of the four villages received 20 percent of the compensation promised to them. They continue to demand the remaining 80 percent.
Some of the 600 residents of Renokenongo village currently living in makeshift shelters inside Porong market said they were disappointed Lapindo had broken its promise to pay the compensation last month.
“Lapindo committed to paying the compensation once it had finished assessing the residents’ damaged assets in mid September. Yet, they have given no reasons for why the payments have been suspended,” said Pitanto, coordinator of the Renokenongo mudflow victims association.
Pitanto also called on non-governmental and religious organizations to help encourage Lapindo and the government to immediately pay the compensation to the mudflow victims.
BPLS spokesman Zulkarnaen said the government would disburse Rp 160 billion immediately to pay 20 percent of the total compensation to the residents of the three villages located outside the disaster location.
“The compensation will be paid immediately to 1,481 victims from the three villages,” he said, but declined to name a date for the payment.
Indra Harsaputra, The Jakarta Post
Sumber: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/10/20/mud-victims-spooked-own-ghost-towns.html
Some 69 families in the East Java villages of Jatirejo, Siring and Renokenongo are standing their ground, refusing to sell their land as part of the compensation plan proposed by the energy company being held responsible for the mudflow disaster.
“If we accept the proposal the company is offering, it will amount to turning our land into cash, but in principle that’s not what we want to do,” Ipung, a spokesperson for the villagers, told The Jakarta Post.
Some 69 families in the East Java villages of Jatirejo, Siring and Renokenongo are standing their ground, refusing to sell their land as part of the compensation plan proposed by the energy company being held responsible for the mudflow disaster.
“If we accept the proposal the company is offering, it will amount to turning our land into cash, but in principle that’s not what we want to do,” Ipung, a spokesperson for the villagers, told The Jakarta Post.
Lapindo Brantas Ltd., a giant energy company belonging to the Bakrie family, has proposed compensation for the residents.
“This land belonged to our ancestors and our ancestors entrusted it to us,” said Ipung, who was born in the village of Jatirejo.
Jatirejo, Siring, and Renokenongo are three of seven villages affected by the Lapindo mudflow disaster which began when mud gushing from a mining site in Porong district, Sidoarjo regency, May 29, 2006.
Initially, the four villages of West Siring, Jatirejo, Mindi, and Renokenongo were inundated. In February this year, three more villages, Besuki, Kedungcangkring and Pejarakan were likewise buried in hot mud that sprang out of new, adjacent leaks.
In a matter of days, the Porong district villages, near the East Java capital of Surabaya, were wiped from the map. Since then, disaster victims have organized themselves into several forums to advocate for their rights.
Ipung said his group of 69 families still refused to take any compensation offered by Lapindo.
“They tried to first intimidate us then bribe us so we would take the compensation and sell our land.”
He said further he was once visited by a stranger armed with a pistol and offered a bribe to stop encouraging other residents to decline Lapindo’s compensation offer. Despite his efforts, most disaster victims have accepted the initial compensation from the company, including some Jatirejo villagers.
According to the two-phased offer, Lapindo paid out 20 percent of the full compensation in advance to all residents. Those with deeds were supposed to receive the remaining 80 percent in cash by June 2008; those without, should have received an offer of housing.
However, Lapindo switched the second cash disbursement for titled victims with a new offer of existing housing in the Kahuripan Nirvana Village housing complex located in the Surabaya outskirts.
Lapindo was supposed to pay the 80 percent in the form of land and housing only to people without land deeds.
Some victims have rejected the offer because they feel living in a housing complex would disrupt their culture and traditions. “A housing complex doesn’t suit us because we used to live in the village far from the city and we depend on vast areas of land for our farming,” said Pitanto, a leader of the Renokenongo mudflow-victim group.
The villagers have instead demanded Lapindo compensate them with land and housing of the same value that they lost, not with cash.
“We ended up accepting the worst possible compensation scheme because of the pressure of trying to make ends meet,” Pitanto said.
The compensation process is expected to be completed by the end of this year. Most of the mudflow victims hope either Lapindo or the government will pay the compensation soon so they can use it to buy land, rebuild their villages and start all over again.
Faisal Maliki Baskoro, The Jakarta Post
Sumber: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/10/13/victims-refuse-sell-muddy-land-lapindo.html
For Supardi, the recent Idul Fitri celebrations were vastly different to previous years as his village struggled to rebuild after a devastating mudflow struck in February this year.
As neighborhood head of Besuki village, Supardi and his fellow villagers celebrated Idul Fitri in emergency tents and makeshift houses after their homes and farmland were destroyed in the disaster.
For Supardi, the recent Idul Fitri celebrations were vastly different to previous years as his village struggled to rebuild after a devastating mudflow struck in February this year.
As neighborhood head of Besuki village, Supardi and his fellow villagers celebrated Idul Fitri in emergency tents and makeshift houses after their homes and farmland were destroyed in the disaster.
“We tried to celebrate Idul Fitri as we had in past years, but it’s not the same because we have been expelled from our own homes and deprived of our rights for fair compensation and humane treatment,” Supardi said.
Despite the poor conditions, Supardi said he was still positive because the disaster had drawn the community together in survival throughout the economic hardship.
Residents displayed their unity by agreeing to perform the Ied prayer at the damaged village mosque, and by greeting each other according to the Sillaturahmi Islamic family tradition.
Sillaturahmi is a tradition practiced every Idul Fitri where Muslim families go from door to door visiting their relatives and neighbors, asking for forgiveness by kissing and shaking hands.
“We used to take two to three days going on Sillaturahmi in our village, but this time it only took a couple of hours because we live right next to each other,” Supardi said.
Tears were shed at the Sillaturahmi ritual as residents shook hands and comforted each other, asking for pardon.
Mudflow and gas bubbles inundated Besuki and two other nearby villages, Pejarakan and Kedungcangkrin, earlier this year, rendering them uninhabitable.
Despite the presidential decree for compensation payment issued in August, residents are yet to receive any funding or humanitarian aid from the government. The major energy company held responsible for the disaster, Lapindo Brantas Inc., is also yet to distribute any compensation.
The disaster, which buried four villages and hundreds of hectares of farmland, was triggered by hot mud leaks from the company’s mining site since May 29, 2006.
Following the February nightmare, which submerged hundreds of homes, many people have left their temporary shelters to build huts on their damaged farmland in the village after having difficulties adjusting to their new environment and making money to survive the economic hardship.
“We have been living together for years, living separately in a new environment feels awkward,” Supardi added.
Now, the 250 Besuki residents have been living together in makeshift houses along the damaged Porong toll road and planned to stay there until the government or Lapindo pay for the compensation.
According to the 2008 presidential decree, the mudflow victims in Besuki, Pejarakan and Kedungcangkring villages are entitled to fair compensation from the state budget but so far they have received only a Rp 2.5 million in advance payment to allow them to rent a house for two years while waiting for their resettlement into nearby villages and the payment of the remaining 80 percent compensation.
“We don’t know the location of the new settlement designated for us yet, but what really matters for all of us is to be together again in one village and just try to start all over again,” Supardi said.
Faisal Maliki Baskoro, The Jakarta Post, Sidoarjo
Sumber: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/10/13/mudflow-families-celebrate-idul-fitri-makeshift-huts.html
Friday, 10 October 2008, written by Our Correspondent
The Jakarta Stock Exchange remains closed after Bakrie Group companies are suspended from trading amid allegations of irregularities Indonesia’s billionaire Chief Welfare Minister Aburizal Bakrie, whose companies are already being held responsible for the biggest man-made environmental disaster in Indonesian history, is now in trouble for playing a major role in wrecking the country’s stock market, which has been closed for three days.
The Jakarta Stock Exchange remains closed after Bakrie Group companies are suspended from trading amid allegations of irregularities
Indonesia’s billionaire Chief Welfare Minister Aburizal Bakrie, whose companies are already being held responsible for the biggest man-made environmental disaster in Indonesian history, is now in trouble for playing a major role in wrecking the country’s stock market, which has been closed for three days.
Six companies controlled by the powerful Bakrie Group were suspended from trading Tuesday on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in the wake of wild gyrations in prices that drove the group’s shares down by 30 percent.
The exchange has ordered a probe into trading of the shares, with traders and analysts openly saying the stocks had been manipulated to drive up their price. Lenders to the Bakrie Group, wary after being burnt the first time his empire collapsed after the 1997 Asian financial crisis, are believed to have sought his family companies’ stock as collateral. The stock comes with stringent conditions and bankers worry that some loan covenants may be triggered if the stock remains untradeable. The group has not disclosed what the conditions of group loans are.
Given Bakrie’s political clout and the fact that his companies have routinely escaped scrutiny by government officials, it is questionable how far the investigation will go. However, the disastrous blowout of a Bakrie-controlled gas well two years ago and the environmental damage it did, plus other problems, may have made him less than welcome in the cabinet of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who has made reducing corruption a major goal of his administration. The country’s indefatigable Corruption Eradication Commission has been arresting politicians right and left.
The exchange’s benchmark composite index plummeted more than 21 percent this week, the biggest three-day fall in 20 years as major foreign investors pulled back from emerging markets, and particularly those as dicey as Indonesia’s. The Jakarta Stock Exchange was Asia’s worst-performing market before exchange president Erry Firmansyah shut it Wednesday. There was hope that it would reopen on Friday, but Firmansyah told reporters it would remain closed to give investors a chance to “calm down before they make decisions.”
While suspicion has focused on the Bakrie-owned PT Bumi Resources Tbk, the country’s largest coal miner, it has also shone a spotlight on the Jakarta Stock Exchange as well, which has often been likened to a gaming casino rather than a rational market, with rampant insider trading and traders taking control of blocks of stock in so-called “pump and dump” pyramid selling games between them to drive up the price and draw in retail investors. A classic game is to drive up the price of a stock by selling it between each other until enough unsuspecting investors have been drawn in, then to sell and get out, watching the price drop precipitately.
PT Agis Tbk, a general trading and electronics company, is a case in point. In June of 2007, Agis was responsible for the collapse of the composite index when 20 brokerages defaulted on trades in the company’s shares worth Rp23 billion. Agis’s share price had risen from Rp300 to Rp4,000 in less than six months before plummeting.
Similarly, PT Bumi Resources was the focus of hyperactive trading during the runup in commodity prices earlier this year.
“Among these six companies under the Bakrie Group banner, Bumi Resources is the prima donna,” Sugianto, a market trader with BNI Securities, told local media. Sugianto noted that trading in Bumi Resources accounted for almost 30 percent of the movement in the index every month.
Although in June soaring coal prices pushed Bumi up to make it the largest capitalized company on the exchange, its shares have plunged 75 percent since hitting a record high of Rp8,750 on June 10.
Bayburs Alfaris, an independent market analyst, said trading in Bumi was dominated by so-called “market makers,” who are able to drive prices up or down. “It was the market makers who drove Bumi’s stock price on the exchange,” Alfaris said, calling the stock a “beautiful play” during its heyday.
Bumi was trading at Rp950 on January 2 before it began its exponential, almost ten-fold rise. Apart from the uptrend in commodity prices, Alfaris said, the increase in Bumi’s stock price helped it succeed in its bid to acquire Australia-listed Herald Resources Ltd.
Herald’s main asset is its 80 percent interest in the undeveloped Dairi lead and zinc mine, which is awaiting a permit before construction work can start. The Indonesian state-controlled nickel producer PT Aneka Tambang Tbk owns the other 20 percent.
Both Alfaris and Sugianto said they are suspicious about the trading in Bumi stock movements, although they caution that it appeared to have been done within market rules.
“What we see is that the market makers maintained the movement of prices within the range permitted by the market rules,” Alfaris said. “While it appeared to be real, in reality it was all artificial.”
“Bakrie Group stocks have always been the target of speculators,” Sugianto said. “They are very risky for serious investors.” He added that Bumi’s stock would likely fall further once trading resumed. “Margin calls will put additional pressure on Bumi’s stock price,” he said.
Alfaris noted persistent market reports that parent company PT Bakrie & Brothers had defaulted on recent stock-related debts, another factor pushing sentiment down. A briefing by Bakrie that had been planned for Thursday has been rescheduled to next week.
The Bakrie family, one of Indonesia’s richest, has continued to escape regulatory scrutiny by government officials despite a litany of complaints. The biggest came in May of 2006, when a gas well being drilled near Surabaya by Lapindo Brantas, a subsidiary of the Bakrie family-owned Energi Mega Perseda, blew out into a mud volcano that so far has drowned more than 14,000 homes, 33 schools, 65 mosques, a major toll road and an orphanage and continues to produce more than 20 Olympic swimming pools of stinking mud every day. Lapindo so far has agreed to pay out Rp4 trillion rupiah in compensation to villagers who have lost their homes.
Asia Sentinel reported on September 22 that mud and gas have continued erupting ever since, defying all efforts to stop it and inundating a vast area of Surabaya. Hundreds have been sent to hospitals with breathing difficulties. Scores of factories have heen closed, at least 90 hectares of paddy fields were ruined and fish farms have been destroyed.
Nonetheless, Indonesia’s Environment Ministry in September gave the company a green citation for complying with environmental standards. The award prompted embarrassment from officials and was soundly denounced by environmentalists.
Despite Lapindo’s claim of faultlessness, it is paying Rp4 trillion (US$437 million) in compensation to villagers who lost their homes to the mudflow. Most people seem to have received 20 percent of their payment but they are still waiting on the rest.
(c) Asia Sentinel
Finance Minister Sri Mulyani has been sitting in the hot seat for some time now, and now her seat has now gone from hot to burning since businesspeople and politicians with vested interests have been making attempts to unseat her. We earnestly hope she will survive this saga.
The imbroglio, we suspect, is related to what has been going on in the financial market, especially to the Bakrie Group. Many believe Bakrie is now in a make-or-break situation as it struggles to meet huge obligations to its creditors who hold shares in its subsidiary companies as collateral.
Now that the value of this collateral has dropped significantly, Bakrie is trying to sell off its assets to repay $1.2 billion worth of debts that will mature between the end of this year and early next year.
As the situation worsens, the Bakrie Group, controlled by the family of Coordinating Minister for People’s Welfare Aburizal Bakrie, may make a desperate attempt to get President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to bail them out using either state money or funds from state companies.
It seems that most cabinet ministers and even Vice President Jusuf Kalla have made no objections to such a move. But Finance Minister Sri Mulyani, who holds the key to the state coffers, differs and even resists a move that smacks of a raw deal.
We are concerned whether Sri Mulyani will be able to maintain her strong stance in the face of mounting pressure from various quarters. Because of her persistent anti-graft reform drive at the ministry, she has established more enemies than anyone else in her position previously.
Her reform of the customs office at Indonesia’s largest port, Tanjung Priok, has cost certain businesspeople dearly. Those who once took an easy route by bribing customs officials to get their goods out of the customs area quickly (often by smuggling or under-invoicing imports), now find it much tougher to slip through.
Worse, several parties now claim that customs officials who were dissatisfied with Mulyani’s work have intentionally slowed their pace of work. This development has impacted honest businesspeople who must bear higher capital costs because of the slowed movement of their goods. So now both kinds of businesspeople have a reason to dislike her.
Mulyani’s anti-graft reforms at the tax office have also taken their toll. One good example is the much-publicized zealous efforts of the tax office to uncover the suspected tax evasion of a palm oil company belonging to Raja Garuda Mas Group, controlled by powerful businessman Sukanto Tanoto.
Mulyani has also engaged in confrontations with certain coal producers, asking the immigration office to impose travel bans on businesspeople with coal interests who owed the state unpaid royalties and taxes. One such coal company belongs to the Bakrie Group.
But Mulyani had clashed with the Bakrie Group before this, when, through the Capital Market Supervisory Agency, she rejected a plan by Bakrie’s oil and gas entity, Energi Mega Persada, to spin-off Lapindo Brantas (which had created massive problems in Sidoarjo resulting from an uncontrolled mudflow that is believed to have resulted from Lapindo drilling activities there). This case was finally resolved, with Energi allowed to sell Lapindo to wash its hands of an uncertain future liability.
And now, Mulyani is clashing with Bakrie again. This time, however the clash looks to be protracted, as Bakrie is in a do-or-die situation where it needs to attract buyers or get help from the state or it will face bankruptcy or hostile takeover. Mulyani has said if companies must go bust, then let them be. After all, it is their fault, and why should the government come to rescue them.
Because of her persistence in protecting the state budget from abuse, Mulyani’s enemies have launched a covert operation to unseat her. In the public domain, concerted efforts have been made to discredit Mulyani — claiming she is “un-nationalistic” for her unwillingness to help out local indigenous businesspeople. Some of these people have even accused her of being a running dog for the International Monetary Fund, where she once served as an executive director.
On the contrary, by acting firmly to clean up the customs and tax offices, by penalizing corrupt businesspeople and by acting firmly to defend the state budget from abuse, we can see Mulyani is in fact more nationalistic than those who have attempted to discredit her.
The current political situation may present itself to President Yudhoyono as a big dilemma: whether to help his business friends, or to side with the impeccable and respected finance minister. But the choice is really clear.
Thu, 10/23/2008 11:04 AM | Opinion | The Jakarta Post
Sumber: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/10/23/editorial-the-burning-seat.html
TempoInteractive, Jakarta – Hundreds of Lapindo mudflow refugees held Idul Fitri prayer at the site of the mudlow in Sidoarjo, East Java on Wednesday. The refugees picked one site for their prayer in Ketapang Keres village cancelling the two previous locations within the mud flooded area prepared the day before.
Hundreds of Lapindo mudflow refugees held Idul Fitri prayer at the site of the mudlow in Sidoarjo, East Java on Wednesday. The refugees picked one site for their prayer in Ketapang Keres village cancelling the two previous locations within the mud flooded area prepared the day before.
A legislator Ario Widjanarko told reporters after the prayer that the house will monitor the compensation for the remaining mudflow refugees who have not receive the pay off. A member of the Indonesian Human Rights Commission also joined the prayer at the mudlake area.
Refugees held an annual visit to the grave of their relatives, a tradition which follows Ramadan and Idul Fitri in some places or groups in Indonesia, and the areas where their properties were.
The mudflow in Porong subregency spurred in 2006 at one of the exploration site of the Lapindo Brantas mining company in the region.
More than 10.000 residence were forced to leave their land as the mud form a 2,5 square miles lake which drowned everything in the area. The mudflow is still continuing.
The Jakarta Post, Sidoarjo – Mariati, 43, (right) a victim of the Lapindo mudflow in Porong, Sidoarjo, cries after conducting Ied prayers next to a hot mud retention dam on Wednesday. Mariati said her father died from deep depression that resulted from the disaster which had devastated their house and farmland.
Thousands of mudflow victims in Sidoarjo, East Java, said their Ied prayer for Idul Fitri by the hot mud that covers their assets and culture, their hopes of soon receiving more cash compensation fading fast.
All the attendees, wearing Islamic attire, said their Ied prayer while facing the vast pool of mud — still spewing out hot liquid and odorous gases — under which their houses, land and dead relatives are buried, never to be seen again.
This was the third time the mudflow victims performed their Ied prayer on the raised round dikes since the mud first began to flow from the mining site of energy company Lapindo Brantas Ltd on May 29, 2006.
“Right from the beginning, Lapindo has done nothing, by either thought or donation, to help us with a house of worship. Even worse, the mudflow has submerged a mosque built by residents of the four devastated villages,” Muhayatin, 38, a former resident of the submerged village of Renokenongo, told The Jakarta Post after the prayer on Wednesday.
“All we have — the social community and the culture built over many generations — has been submerged below the drying mud.”
She said they had decided to perform the Ied prayer at the disaster site not only to honor their emotional connection to their lost community and dead relatives, but also as a reminder they had not received the remaining 80 percent compensation that should have been paid last month.
She admitted she had received Rp 42 million (US$4500) in compensation — 20 percent of the total — for her home and land. But that was two years ago, she said, and she had no more money to pay the rent, support her family and finance her four children’s education.
“We are praying here not to celebrate our victory over the monthlong fast, but to recall our lost community and our two years of pain in exile,” she said.
“We are now strangers in our new environment after living in poverty for two years with no certainty about the payment of the remaining 80 percent compensation.”
The community that had been lost was one major asset that no amount of money could compensate for, she added.
Muhayatin, formerly a worker in a factory also destroyed by the mud, has no job now. Her husband has to work as a parking attendant near the mud, with a monthly income of about Rp 300,000 per month.
“This sum is not enough to meet our daily basic needs,” she said.
Another local, Mariati, who looked sad as she recalled the disaster, said she was thinking of her father Muntari, who died aged 75 in a deep depression over his house and other assets that were buried by the mudflow.
“I have no more tears. Lapindo and the government should not make me cry again over the suspended payment of the remaining compensation,” she said.
Lapindo spokeswoman Yuniwati Teryana said her company would pay the remaining compensation as soon as possible.
“We are appealing to mudflow victims to be patient. We will pay the compensation as stipulated by the 2007 presidential regulation,” she said.
Lapindo has so far paid Rp 660 billion for the 20 percent compensation, Rp 719.3 billion for a resettlement program and Rp 169 billion for cash-and-carry settlement. An estimated Rp 5.6 trillion will be need to pay the remaining 80 percent compensation.
Sumber: The Jakarta Post
Mudflow victims on Wednesday protested the dumping of mud into the Porong River for a second time, saying the buildup of sediment had produced a pungent stench and increased the risk of rainy season flooding along the East Java river.
The mud mass has reached between two and five meters from the top of the river, visibly spanning 1 kilometer from its point of entry near the defunct Gempol Toll road bridge in Besuki, Jabon district.
The mud has even reached as far as Pejarakan village, 18 km downstream of the dumping site.
“People protested the dumping because the sediment has reached a dangerous level. The river water cannot flow and could burst the banks to engulf the residents’ houses,” Kupang village head Sudjarwo said.
He said villagers had asked the National Sidoarjo Mudflow Mitigation Team (BPLS) to dredge the sediment ahead of seasonal rains to avoid flooding in the area.
He said if the BPLS refused to remove the clogged mud, the 15 villages would possibly see floods in the rainy season.
The 15 affected villages are Kedungcangkring, Pejarakan, Dukuhsari, Besuki, Keboguyang, Permisan, Jemirahan, Pangreh, Trompo Asri, Balongtani, Kupang, Kedungrejo, Semambung, Kalisogo and Kedungpandan, all in Jabon district.
Experts and environmental groups, including the Indonesian Forum for the Environment, have heavily criticized the dumping, saying it could have severe environmental repercussions.
BPLS spokesman Achmad Zulkarnain claimed the mitigation team had cleared a channel in the river using four floating excavators to increase the water’s flow.
“We are also concentrating on repairing the main banks which collapsed due to Monday and Tuesday’s rallies. We hope residents do not block the work as it’s for the common interest,” Zulkarnain said.
Hundreds of mudflow victims shut down a reconstruction site at the Porong mudflow area Monday, demanding mining company Lapindo Brantas Inc. pay the remaining 80 percent compensation owed them as ordered by a presidential instruction.
Protesters grabbed tools from construction workers, prevented others from operating cranes working the main mudflow banks and stopped supply trucks from entering the site.
A presidential Instruction No. 14/2007, issued one year after the erupting mud began to submerse villages on May 29, 2006, orders Lapindo to pay the remaining compensation owed residents one month before the end of a two-year house leasing arrangement ends.
The company, partly owned by the family of Coordinating Minister for People’s Welfare Aburizal Bakrie, has paid out 20 percent of the required compensation to allow mudflow victims to rent houses.
Indra Harsaputra, The Jakarta Post
Sumber: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/08/28/lapindo-silt-feared-trigger-major-flooding.html