Govt questions four points over Freeport environmental audit; Legislator says Freeport audit result not reflect reality

The Ministry of Environment/The Environmental Impact Assessment Agency (Bapedal) questioned on Friday four points regarding the self environmental audit of giant gold mining firm PT Freeport Indonesia.

Bapedal deputy Effendi Achmad Sumardja said that Freeport was given one week to provide the answer.

Effendi didn't fully disclose the questions issued by the agency, but it includes question over the management of Freeport tailing waste products.

Bapedal was verifying the audit result of Freeport.

Minister of Environment/Bapedal chief Sonny Keraf had been irritated when Freeport announced its environment audit result in various newspapers in December without prior verification by the agency.

Sonny has said that Freeport must make new advertisement in newspapers if the government verification turned out to disagree with the Freeport self environmental audit result.

Sonny also said that Bapedal would conduct its own audit if there were signs that Freeport had seriously damaged the environment, and would shut down the gold mining operation in Irian Jaya if it's been proven.

The Freeport self environmental audit was made by international independent auditor Montgomery Watson, which praises Freeport's environmental management system.

But legislator Pramono Anung was quoted by the daily Kompas as saying that the audit result doesn't reflect the reality.

Pramono, a member of the House of Representatives commission VIII on mining and energy, said that in reality the environmental condition around Freeport area had been destroyed.(*)