Sumbawa should obtain a greater portion of Newmont royalty: Lawmaker

Sumbawa regency in West Nusa Tenggara province should obtain a greater portion of royalty provided by gold and copper mining firm PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara, a local lawmaker said.

M. Djabir, a member of Sumbawa legislative council budget committee, was quoted Friday by the leading Kompas daily as saying that the current distribution of the Newmont royalty was unfair for Sumbawa which has to shoulder the environmental, culture and social impact of the company?s gold, copper and silver mining operation.

Newmont Nusa Tenggara, a unit of Newmont Mining Corp., announced Thursday that it had transferred the 2001 fourth quarter royalty of US$3.88 million to the finance ministry account at Bank Indonesia, making the total royalty paid by the company between 1999-2001 to reach $31.39 million.

Based on the existing ruling, 20 percent of the royalty goes to the central government coffer, and the remaining 80 percent to the West Nusa Tenggara province of which 16 percent is allocated to the provincial administration, 32 percent to the Sumbawa administration, and the remainder distributed to other regencies in the province.

Elsewhere, Djabir criticized the slow disbursement of the royalty fund from the central government to the regency administration. He said that the royalty fund should have been given directly by Newmont to the administration, not via the central government account.(*)