S. Kalimantan gets higher royalties due to wrong disbursement

The directorate general of state budget at the ministry of finance has wrongly paid coal royalties to South Kalimantan. The royalties disbursed to the province reached about Rp 54 billion much higher that it was supposed to receive, Kompas daily reported on Friday.

The wrong royalty payment was unveiled by Gusti Iskandar, a member of the Commission VIII of the House of Representatives (DPR) during a hearing with senior officials of the ministry of finance on Thursday.

Gusti said that the payment of the Rp 54 billion royalty was made without the consent of the director general of state budget Anshari Lubis. But he did not disclose how much the South Kalimantan should have received.

Anshari acknowledged the wrong payment but he said it was only a human error. ?The person who was involved in the disbursement of the money had been removed to other position,? he said.

He said that the wrong disbursement would not cause a loss to the state because the South Kalimantan had agreed to return back the funds. (*)