Governors recommend 420 IUPs to get C&C status

Governors in several provinces have recommended 420 IUP mining business permits, which have been previously considered as ?problematic,? to be given the clean and clear (C&C) status by the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (MEMR).

Ministry?s Director General of Minerals and Coal Bambang Gatot Ariyono, however, said on Friday that the IUPs would not automatically get the C&C status as the ministry would first make evaluation whether they have met the criteria.

Governors in 31 provinces are given authority to evaluate thousands of IUPs as part of efforts to clean up the country?s mining sector from problems such as overlapping of concessions and bad miners including failure to pay financial obligations to the state properly.

Bambang said that regarding non-C&C IUPs, the directorate in cooperation with the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) would later decide what measures to be taken including the possibility of revoking the permits.

He said that the cleaning up of problematic IUPs should have been completed by May 12 of this year, but apparently many regency/mayoralty administrations have yet to hand over the IUP documents to the governors for evaluation process.

According to Law No 23/2014, mayors and regents have until October 2016 to hand over the IUP documents to the governors, which have 90 days since receiving the documents to complete the evaluation process: the result of which can be either recommendation for C&C status or non-C&C status. Therefore, the final deadline is expected in January of 2017. ?Next year, the conclusion would be either the IUPs to be revoked or maintained,? Bambang said.

As of February 2016, according to MEMR, there were a total of 10,331 IUPs, of which 6,365 have obtained the C&C status. (*)