President Jokowi Revoked Thousands of Mining, Forestry, Plantation Permits

TheIndonesia.id - President Jokowi (Joko Widodo) has firmly revoked thousands of mining permits at the Bogor Presidential Palace, Thursday, January 6, 2022. Not only mining permits, forestry, and plantation permits have also been revoked by the government.

President said that permit revocation was because it was not following its original designation. "Mining, forestry, and state land use permits continue to be evaluated thoroughly. Permits that are not executed, are not productive, are transferred to other parties, and are not following designations and regulations (will be revoked)," said President quoted from Antara.

President Jokowi was accompanied by Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Arifin Tasrif, Minister of Agrarian and Spatial Planning/ Head of the National Land Agency Sofyan Djalil, Minister of Environment and Forestry Siti Nurbaya Bakar, and Minister of Investment/ Head of the Investment Coordinating Board Bahlil Lahadalia.

"First, today as many as 2,078 mining company permits have been revoked, because they have never submitted a work plan (or) permits that have been given for years but never been implemented," said President Jokowi. This has led to natural resources never being used to improve people's welfare.

"Secondly, today we also revoke 192 forestry sector permits covering an area of 3,126,439 hectares," said President Jokowi. These permits were revoked for being inactive, not making a work plan, and the property is abandoned.

"Thirdly, 34,448 hectares of abandoned plantation land use rights (HGU) have been revoked today. 25,128 Hectares belong to 12 legal entities, the remaining 9,320 hectares are part of the abandoned HGU belonging to 24 legal entities," said Jokowi.

According to President, revamping and controlling these business permits is an integral part of improving the governance of mining, forestry, and other permits. "The government continues to make improvements by providing transparent and accountable business license facilities, but we will definitely revoke permits that are misused," he said.