Lanna Harita delays paying compensation to cooperatives

Coal mining company PT Lanna Harita Indonesia (LHI), which has agreed to pay compensation to cooperatives to end their land dispute, has delayed paying the compensation after the cooperatives failed to agree upon the amount of compensation, East Kalimantan-based Metro Balikpapan daily reported on Friday.

The coal company, which has a coal concession in Samarinda, East Kalimantan, was reluctant to pay the compensation for fear of facing a ?problem? in the future, according to Fadli Illa, the coordinator of the team assigned by the provincial administration to settle the dispute.

Fadli said LHI did not want that some parties might claim in the future that it had not yet paid a full compensation and start troubling its operation again.

?Although there is already an agreement to compensation for the land, the payment of the compensation has been delayed because there is not yet any agreement on the amount of compensation,? he said.

Some cooperatives demanded Rp 15,000 (about US$1.5) per square meters in compensation, but the amount had not been agreed upon by all cooperatives involved in the dispute, Fadli said.

LHI has been locked in a dispute with local cooperatives over a 60-hectare plot of land which is part of its mining concession but also claimed by the cooperatives as their properties. The dispute has forced LHI to postpone its mining program in the area.

LHI is 55 percent owned by Thailand?s Lanna Lignite, 35 percent by Indonesia?s Harita Group, and 10 percent by Singapore?s Pan United. (*)