East Kalimantan parliament to ask companies to pay more for local development

The East Kalimantan parliament plans to visit large companies operating in the province to ask them to pay more to help finance local development program, according to the local Kaltim Post daily.

The paper quoted head of the parliament?s commission C Tantomo Mbus as saying that many of the companies operating in the province and exploiting local resources for many years had only small contribution to the financing of the local development.

?After years of operating (in the province), they only contributed very little,? Tantomo said, adding that many only contributed in the form of community development program, which he said was also not so significant in helping local development.

He pointed out as example that gold mining firm PT Kelian Equatorial Mining (KEM) since starting operation in the early 1980s until now had only contributed around Rp 7 billion in community development program.

Tantomo said that the targeted companies would either pay in the form of third party contribution or new local tax. He said that the collected funds would become revenue for the local government.

?We plan to visit each companies,? he said.

Since the central government introduced the new autonomy law, giving greater power to regional governments in managing their economic affairs, many investors have expressed fear that the local administration would impose new taxes to raise funds to finance their greater administrative role.(*)