Bapedal recommends a revision of Freeport contract
Tuesday, June 20 2000 - 03:30 AM WIB
The Indonesian environmental watchdog or Bapedal recommends the government to revise the current contract of work of gold giant mining firm PT Freeport Indonesia particularly in relation to environmental clauses, according to Minister of Environment/Chairman of Bapedal Sonny Keraf.
Sonny said on Monday during a hearing session with the House of Representatives commission VIII on mining that the clauses which regulated Freeport's environmental management was "not clear," and "lack details."
Sonny was quoted by the Antara news agency as saying that the recommendation to revise the environmental clauses was made by a government team led by Bapedal after conducting a study on Freeport contract of work between April and June.
He said that the revision would be made by considering the current Law No. 23/1997 on environmental management.
Sonny also said that the Bapedal team had concluded that Freeport's current production capacity of 230,000 tons per day was already beyond the supporting capacity of the local environment.
Freeport has been under attack due to various problems including alleged corruption, nepotism, environmental destruction, and human rights abuses. The company was nearly untouchable during the administration era of the former authoritarian president Soeharto.
Meanwhile, Sonny also said that Freeport must display another advertisement in the local mass media on the result of its environmental audit because the earlier advertisement didn't contain complete information.
He said that the government had evaluated the first audit result made by Montgomery Watson, a consultant appointed by Freeport. He said that the audit result was incomplete. (*)