Local people demands resignation of Timah top management

Some 1,000 people of the Bangka Belitung province gathered Friday afternoon for the provincial people?s congress. The Kompas daily reported that the speakers in the congress lambasted the management of the state-owned tin mining firm PT Timah for blaming local traditional miners for the company?s poor financial performance.

The congress said that Timah?s poor performance was not because of the rampant illegal mining activities at the company?s mining sites in the province, but because of mismanagement.

The congress demanded the current management of Timah to resign, and also demanded the central government to hand over its 65 percent stake in the publicly-listed tin miner to the hands of the people.

The congress went relatively peaceful.

Timah?s 2001 profit is expected to plunge significantly due to weak international tin price amid oversupply in the commodity. Timah has said that the tin market has been flooded with products from the illegal tin miners in the Bangka and Belitung islands. The company said that it would go bankrupt if the situation does not improve.(*)