S. Sumatra threatens to revoke hundreds of mining permits

The South Sumatra provincial government has threatened to revoke hundreds of mining permits in the province on the grounds they have ignored the deadline set for exploration activities. Bisnis Indonesia reported Friday

Akhmad Bakhtiar, the province's mining office head, said in Palembang on Thursday that the local government had issued permits for investors to explore and exploit a total of 270 concessions but only some of them have been explored.

?Some of them were issued five years ago, but no exploration activities have been made (by the permit holders),? he said.

Many investors also violated their permits by using their concession areas for other purposes.

Investors who had not carried out exploration activities and those who used the concession areas for other purposes would have permits revoked as punishment, he said.

Akhmad said that his office would cooperate with the regency governments in punishing such investors, because it was the latter which has the full authority to oversee mining concessions in their respective territories.

He said that the provincial administration only had the right to oversee mining areas located in two or more regencies, while those located in one regency were under the full control of the regency?s authority. (*)