East Kalimantan offers online-mining service

The provincial government of East Kalimantan will soon introduce an online system in the application of investment permits in the province?s mining sector. The interactive administration system will also be developed to avoid an overlap in the mining concessions, Kompas reported on Wednesday.

Director General of Geology and Mineral Resources at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Wimpy S Tjetjep, said in Samarinda on Tuesday that the online application would be able to cut a long bureaucratic procedures which often cause difficulties to would-be investors.

?It will be also able to cut a red tape as all the application and the government?s response will be all processed through the Internet,? he said, adding that the system which is now in its finishing touch would be gradually used in the province?s regencies of Kutai, Pasir and East Kutai.

Yusmani, the head of the online project, said that the local mining office had allocated Rp 100 million to build the system, including for the purchase of a Hawlett Packard (HP) server and its two work stations.

?The system will be soon introduced, but the time has yet been fixed,? he said, adding when the online system is introduced, it will take only two weeks to process and obtain a mining permit. (*)