PT KEM allocates $5m to rehabilitate environment, empower people
Tuesday, July 3 2001 - 01:33 AM WIB
"The most important thing is not the figure, but we want to end our mining activities in a good way. About the budget, it would depend on the situation later," said KEM president Charlie Lenegan in Balikpapan on Monday after signing a work agreement with a labor union at the company.
The agreement was finally signed following protests from laborers over their work certainty ahead of the closure of mining activities.
The company has also agreed to involve its own employees in its empowerment programs. Many of the company's employees have bought lands around the company's mining sites, and they have expressed that they want to do farming after the closure of the mining activities.
Therefore, KEM has also provided training on agriculture, husbandry and fishery to support the lives of its employees after the mining closure. About 79 percent of its employees are from East Kalimantan, including from the areas surrounding the mining sites.
In addition to farming, the company also provides training in other areas of skills, including sewing, technical works and the like.
"The kind of the training is adjusted in accordance with the results of the survey against our employees," said KEM employee relation manager, Moh Nispah.
Nispah said that its employees had also demanded the company to pay more compensations when the company stopped mining operation in year 2004.
Not only that, the company also faced various demand from local people, some of them even went into brutal actions and prevented vessels from supplying fuels to the company, and this forced the company to stop its operation for some time.
"We used to stop our operation for one month, and because of this, we suffered losses of up to $900 million," Nispah said.
Speaking about its environmental program, Lenegan said that the company would retain the existing three huge pits, each with a size of 1.5 kilometers in diameter and 600 meters in depth, and would transform the pits into ponds or artificial lakes that could be developed for fishery business and tourism purposes.
A staff at KEM communication division, Kasan Mulyono, said that the three large pits could not be reclaimed because of its huge size and therefore, the company was required to reclaim various smaller pits in Bukit Soeharto.
KEM plans to reclaim its smaller mining pits after the closure of its mining activities, starting in 2004 until 2007. "If during that period we could not finish the reclamation, we will extend it," Kasan said. (*)