Government to form team to investigate Newmont Minahasa Raya
Monday, March 13 2000 - 04:00 AM WIB
The Ministry of Mines and Energy has sent a letter to the Minahasa Regent in North Sulawesi to form a verification team to investigate whether gold mining firm PT Newmont Minahasa Raya (NMR) has commercially used the so-called C-class mining products.
The March 10 letter said that the local head of the ministry and the head of the public works ministry should be included in the team.
The Minahasa administration had filed a lawsuit against NMR demanding the latter to be shut down on grounds that it had not paid its C-class mining tax. But NMR insisted that it had never commercially used the C-class mining products. It said that the C-class minerals were just by products of the gold mining activity.
The dispute is currently being processed by the local court. (*)