Governors to revoke non-C&C IUPs starting October

The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources has given mandate to provincial governors to revoke IUP mining business license of miners which fail to obtain the clean and clear (C&C) status starting October 1, when the government will end its years of campaign to push the miners to clean up problematic permits.

Director of Mineral and Coal Development Program at the ministry, Sri Rahardjo was quoted as saying that this was the results of talks between the ministry and the Corruption Eradication Commission on Wednesday.

Sri said that while the 2009 Mining Law gives the authority in revoking IUP mining permits to regents and mayors, Law No 23/2014 on regional administration transfers the authority to governors.

Of the total 10,432 IUPs, some 6,156 have obtained the C&C certificate from the ministry as per June 2015. Sri said miners have until October 1 to clean up the remaining 4,276 problematic IUPs, issued aggressively in the past by regency and mayoralty administrations without proper regards to prevailing regulations as they tried to seek extra revenue to help finance their new greater autonomy power.

In order for miners to obtain the C&C status, they must meet a number of conditions including that their concessions do not overlap with protected forest areas or the concessions of other miners; fulfill financial obligations to the state; and have the proper environmental and other documents. (*)