DPR, minister agree to speed up oil and gas law amendment

The House of Representatives (DPR) and the government have agreed to speed up the amendment process of Oil and Gas Law No. 22/2001.

The agreement was part of the conclusions of the hearing between DPR?s Commission VII which oversees among others energy sector and Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Jero Wacik on Tuesday.

The amendment process was kicked off several years ago but no clear progress has been made so far. Several points in the law have been annulled by the Constitution Court based on petitions from members of the public, including the latest one on the establishment of BPMIGAS as the supervisor of the oil and gas upstream sector. BPMIGAS has been dissolved and replaced with SKK Migas. Experts say the existence of SKK Migas is in conflict with the law.

Another conclusion that was agreed upon during the hearing is that in order to improve good governance at SKK Migas so that it becomes an agency that is clean of corruption, collusion and nepotism, the Commission asked the minister to make a report on the assets of SKK Migas and submit it to the Commission.

The Commission also asked the minister, as chairman of the supervisory board of SKK Migas, to follow up the investigative report by BPK of BPMIGAS.

Editing by Johannes Simbolon