Kotabaru Regent vows to help traditional coal miners

Kotabaru Regent Sjachrani Mataya vowed to help seek solution to the problems faced by the traditional coal miners, mostly illegal, in the coal-rich regent of South Kalimantan.

"I will fight so that they can have the opportunity to work in the mining sector," he said.

Sjachrani was responding to protest made by the traditional miners against a new ruling issued last month by the South Kalimantan administration which is a first step to ban them from mining coal in the area.

Sjachrani said that he would hold a dialogue with the Ministry of Mines and Energy to seek better solution to the problem of traditional miners. He said that one possibility that needs to be explored is by asking large coal mining companies to employ the traditional miners.

He said that there were several large coal mining firms in the Kotabaru area including PT Arutmin and PT Bentala Cakrawala Sebuku.(*)