BPMIGAS: CSR Budget should be increased

Upstream authority BPMIGAS said that it was now necessary for the production sharing contractors (PSC) to allocate more funds for corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities as pressures from people living around their upstream operations were mounting.

BPMIGAS Public Relations, Security, and Formality Division Head Gde Pradnyana said in Jakarta on Friday that the CSR funds spent in the oil and gas upstream industry were still in small amount, especially if considering the oil and gas contribution to the state budget.

?Currently, funds allocated by the PSC contractors for CSR are only Rp 500 billion per year. With the financial contribution from the oil and gas upstream reacching Rp 280 trillion per year, then the CSR funds should be at the amount of at least Rp 2 trillion,? he said.

According to Gde, the CSR funds are mainly used to finance programs of eradicating poverty, and improving the economy of people living around the oil and gas business operations.

?The oil and gas explorations and exploitations are conducted in remote areas, where people lag behind in terms of economy. We hope the CSR programs can help the local people to improve their welfare. The more their welfare improved, the less they will become a distrurbance to the oil and gas business operations,? he said.

He asked the PSC contractors not to base their CSR programs merely on charity or philantropic activities. But instead, they should pursue more on programs to empower the local people socially and economically.

But despite of the fact, Gde noted that the CSR programs in the oil and gas upstream industry had reached the targets as expected. It is indicated by, among others, the CSR awards won by BPMIGAS and the PSC contractors. During the last two years, BPMIGAS and a number of PSC contractors have won CSR awards for their efforts in developing small and medium scale entreprises across Indonesia.

Editing by Benget Besalicto Tnb.