Govt sets up team to evaluate recommendations to revoke non-C&C mining licenses

By Thomas Sembiring

The government has set up a team to evaluate recommendations made by provincial governors to revoke problematic IUP mining licenses, or better known as non-C&C (non-clear and clean) IUPs, as part of efforts to clean up the country?s mining sector.

This was said on Thursday by Director General of Mineral and Coal Bambang Gatot Ariyono.

He said that so far 600 IUPs have been recommended to be revoked. He did not say when the evaluation team would make decision.

Of the total 10,361 IUPs, 3,997 are still considered as non-C&C.

According to the law, regency and mayoralty administrations are obliged to hand over the IUP mining permits to the governors by October 2016 at the latest. The governorswill then have 90 days to evaluate the IUPs, whether to revoke the non-C&C licenses, or give the miners opportunity to upgrade their status to become C&C. Many regency/mayoralty administrations have initially been reluctant in handing over the IUP documents to the governors for evaluation.

Non-C&C IUPs refer to licenses which are overlapping, or the miners failed to pay theirfinancial obligations to the state properly.

Some observerssaid that the government is prone to face lawsuits at the court filed by minerswhose IUPs were revoked.

Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak