East Kalimantan Parliament reminds oil, mining companies to help local people

Speaker of the East Kalimantan Parliament Sukardi Djarwo Putro warned oil and mining companies which do not care about the local people must leave the province immediately, the local Suara Kaltim reported on Monday.

Speaking during a visit to the Sepinggan oil field of PT Unocal Indonesia, Sukardi urged oil and mining companies to help improve the livelihood of the people particularly those living near the companies' operation.

"If the big companies which have explore oil and mine products here do not care about the people living nearby, they must leave the province," Sukardi said.

He added that the Parliament had often received complaints and inputs from the people about the oil and mining companies operating in the province.

Meanwhile, concern that Unocal Tanjung Santan operation had disposed its waste materials to canals near housing community in the evening was brought by head of the East Kalimantan environmental impact assessment agency (Bapedalda) Sabran Malisi.

But Unocal vice president of the southern operation Ponda Lubis immediately dismissed the concern, saying that Unocal had disposed its waste materials into the sea water according to the existing procedure.(*)