?Problematic? mining firms may have to stop production next year

By Thomas Sembiring

Petromindo|Thomas

Problematic IUP mining firms may have to stop production and export starting next year as government institutions will no longer provide their services to miners which fail to obtain so-called clean and clear (C&C) status for their IUP mining business licenses by December 31.

Government institutions including the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (MEMR), the Ministry of Forestry and Environment Affairs, the Ministry of Law and Human Rights, and the Directorate General of Excise and Custom agreed on Wednesday during a coordination meeting with the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) that they will also stop providing services to miners whose IUP mining business licenses have expired.

Director General of Coal and Mineral at the MEMR, Bambang Gatot Ariyono said that the ministry will also ?blockade? miners which have not paid their financial obligations to the state. He said that total unpaid financial obligations of the miners stand at around Rp 4.3 trillion.

Pahala Nainggolan, a deputy at KPK, said that there are 3,078 IUP mining firms whose licenses have expired, and 2,509 mining firms whose IUP licenses are still in the category of non-C&C.

The government, specifically the MEMR, has been over the past few years struggling to resolve ?problematic? IUP mining firms, which obtain their mining licenses in the past from local administrations without proper regards to existing laws and regulations. Some of the IUPs are suffering from overlapping problem including with protected forest areas. Many of the miners also do not have proper documents, and have failed to pay their financial obligations to the state such as royalty. These miners are categorized to be non-C&C miners.

The government has given time to around half of the more than 9,000 IUP miners to resolve the problem, but thousands to date remain in the non-C&C status, which face the risk of being revoked by provincial administrations. Deadline to revoke the non-C&C mining firms, however, has been repeatedly missed, and some miners whose licenses have been revoked have filed lawsuit.

Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak