Aspera blames S. Kalimantan mining office irresponsible

The Association of People's Mining's (Aspera) South Kalimantan blames the province's mining office as irresponsible and trying to clean itself from dirty practices of illegal mining activities.

Aspera's S. Kalimantan branch chairman Endang Kesumayadi said on Monday that the mining office should be held responsible for the rampant illegal mining activities.

"With the rampant illegal mining activities, the mining office may not wash its hands from the responsibility. In my opinion, they are the ones to be held responsible for the rampant illegal mining activities because they are tasked to supervise and socialize Law No. 11/1997 on Mining," he said.

He said that the mining office must also be held responsible in the recent auction of illegal coals. He noted that because the coal was illegal, and therefore, it could not sold.

Instead of selling the coal, he said, the mining office should caught the illegal miners.

"If the illegal coals are auctioned, there must be a definite court verdict. Then, there must be suspects, and the first suspect must be the illegal miners and the second should be the mining office," he said.

He also said that a report from the head of the coordination and problem settlement team for coal affairs (TKPPMB), Armain Janit, that there were about 600,000 tons of dead stock coal was still an underestimate report.

He noted that dead stocks of coal reached more than just 600,000 tons.

The head of S. Kalimantan mining office, Suhama A. Rasjid, said that his office had done its best in socializing the mining law and supervising the mining activities in the province. And therefore, he said, Aspera's accusation that his office was trying to avoid responsibilities was not true.

"As for the auction of coal, I want to clarify that the revenue from the auctions will be used for the betterment of this area. As for those who had benefited illegally from the auctions, we had reported them to the law enforcers," he said. (*)