Kutai govt defends Kimco against residents’ protests

The head of legal department of the Kutai Kertanegara regency administration in East Kalimantan, HM Husni Thamrin has strongly defended Korean coal company PT Kimco Armindo against the protest of the local people.

He said that the local residents’ demand for a higher compensation from Kimco was not only strange but also unrealistic. “It is strange if you ask a company to pay compensation twice,” he was quoted as saying by Kaltim Post daily.

According to him, Kimco had settled all the payment of the compensation for some 1,300 hectares of land cleared for the operation of the company some time ago. “If the residents said that the payment of the compensation had gone to the wrong persons, it is also not true because all the compensation payment involved local community leaders,” he said.

Kimco which had spent about US$6 million for its mining operation in the regency had threatened to pull out from the area due to continuing conflicts with the local people, who often blocked the main road to the company’s operation.

The villagers demanded the company to pay additional compensation for the land used for its mining site. (*)