Govt urged to be transparent in distribution of oil and gas revenues

The country's oil and gas producing provinces have asked the central government to be fair and transparent in the distribution of the revenues from oil and gas production.

Irianto MS Syaifuddin, the head of the consultation forum of oil and gas producing provinces (FKDPM), said in Jakarta on Monday that the oil and gas producing provinces had never been involved in arranging the government's policy related to oil and gas revenue sharing.

"The central government just gave the final result but we don't know how the process was made," he said. According to him, the central government has also never told the local administrations the total amount of oil and gas produced from their territories.

Meanwhile Vice President Jusuf Kalla said that the local governments of oil and gas producers should also be fair and transparent in the use of the funds from the oil and gas revenue.

"If they want the central government to be fair and transparent, they should also do the same thing on how the money is spent," he said. "The people should also know how much each province receive from oil and gas, and how the money is used," he said.

The central government receives about 85 percent from oil production and about 65 percent from gas production. Part of the revenues received from oil and gas production are distributed to non-producing provinces.(Godang)