Jakarta not serious about autonomy Riau

The decision of the ministry of mines and energy to reject the Riau provincial administration's plan to adopt its own mining regulation has received a strong opposition from local legislators.

They said that the central government's rejection on the implementation of the regulation, which would empower the local administration to administer all the mining rights in the province, indicated its unwillingness to grant a wider autonomy to the province.

Ridwan Sani, a former member of the House of Representatives, said that the local administration had the rights to ignore the central government's rejection because it was against the wider autonomy principle to be granted by Jakarta to all provinces in the country.

"The local administration has the rights to ignore the rejection and go ahead with its plan," he said, adding that the central government should not have opposed the proposed mining regulation because it was made as a preparation for the full autonomy to be granted to the province.

Ridwan said the government often blamed the provincial administrations' unpreparedness on the delay in the implementation of the automony law, but in the reaility, it was the central government, which declined to adopt the law.

"The fact that it rejected the initiative made by Riau shows that it is the central government which is not ready and is not willing to implement the autonomy law, which will scrap most of their authorities over a province," he said.

The Riau administration recently proposed the implementation of its own mining ruling, which would take over the authorities of the province's natural resources from the central government. But the ministry rejected the proposal. (*)