Antara News, Thursday, December 10, 2009 04:05 WIB
Pekanbaru (ANTARA News) - Two environmental advocacy groups here plan to report former forestry minister MS Kaban to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) for suspected irregularities in the granting of concessions to industrial forest company PT RAPP.
"We suspect PT RAPP obtained industrial forest concessions in Riau province`s Kampar Peninsula because of gratification and collusion," Hariansyah Usman, executive director of the Riau branch of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) said here Wednesday.
He said Walhi and another non-governmental organization, Jikalahari, were already in possession of evidence strongly indicating irregularities in the way PT RAPP had won the right to operate on 350,165 hectares of forested land in the Kampar Peninsula. "We will soon report our findings to the KPK," he said.
The licenses signed by former forestry minister MS Kaban for PT Riau Andalan Pulp & Paper (RAPP) were in violation of a number of existing forestry regulations, he said.
In June 2009, or three months before he was replaced as forestry minister, Kaban had signed licenses that added 115,000 hectares to the company`s 235,000-hectare concession so that it now controlled a total of 350,165 hectares of forest land.
However, most of the concessions given to PT RAPP proved to overlap and were located in five protected forest areas, namely in the Rimbang Baliung Wildlife Reserve, the Tasik Pulau Padang Wildlife Reserve, the Danau Besar Reserve, the Tasik Belat Reserve and the Tesso Nilo National Park.
"Kaban also signed the licenses before the areas involved were measured. As a consequence, although in the official licenses the company would get 115,000 more hectares, in reality or after the measuring was done , its concession area increased by 122,000 hectares.
In view of these irregularities, Walhi and Jikalahari would report the case to the KPK, Hermasyah said.
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