TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Mud money a land-grab transaction, says Aburizal
Chief welfare minister Aburizal Bakrie said Thursday the money being provided to mudflow victims in Sidoarjo, East Java, was not compensation but rather constituted a business deal to acquire their ruined land
Change Size
Chief welfare minister Aburizal Bakrie said Thursday the money being provided to mudflow victims in Sidoarjo, East Java, was not compensation but rather constituted a business deal to acquire their ruined land.
He said his family had so far disbursed some Rp 4.5 trillion (US$ 409 million) in cash for the victims since the mud started erupting in 2006, adding that the money was not being provided by PT Lapindo Brantas.
Lapindo is a gas drilling company partly owned by the Bakrie family, and has widely been blamed for sparking the disastrous eruption of the mud volcano.
“This is a business transaction, not compensation provided to the victims because there is no legal verdict as yet to determine whether or not Lapindo is guilty in the case,” Aburizal said.
He said his mother had ordered him to share his family’s money to help the mudflow victims in Sidoarjo. “For us, my mother’s voice is just like a fatwa issued by the MUI (the Indonesian Council of Ulema); we have to abide by it,” Aburizal said.
He said the mudflow case was a natural disaster and had nothing to do with gas drilling activities under Lapindo.
In October, a meeting of renowned international geologists lead by England’s University of Durham concluded that the disaster was caused by Lapindo’s drilling activities.
However, both the Central Jakarta District Court and the South Jakarta District Court have rejected lawsuits filed by the Indonesian Environmental Forum against Lapindo over the mudflow.
“Similar mudflows have also appeared in several areas across the country, including in South Kalimantan, West Java and South Sumatra,” Aburizal said.
In South Sumatra, he said, the mud had gushed out at a location near a drilling site of state oil and gas company Pertamina.
“Pertamina was not sued for the mudflow. But because Lapindo is a private company, we (the Bakrie family) have been invited to talk to resolve the Sidoarjo case and the government can’t put pressure on us,” Aburizal said.
He said his family still needed to spend between Rp 1.5 trillion and Rp 2.5 trillion to help the mudflow victims in Sidoarjo.
Asked whether it was likely the government would impose sanctions should Lapindo fail to complete the compensation payments, the minister said, “there is no sanction because this is a business transaction”.
The government has so far dubbed the payment as compensation for the victims.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono who ordered Lapindo to immediately being paying the remaining 80 percent of compensations for the victims, saying that he had become angered by the drawn-out debacle.
Nirwan Bakrie, Aburizal’s younger brother who currently chairs Bakrie group, agreed to settle the remaining 80 percent of the payments in monthly installments of Rp 30 million for each family.
Each family will receive in total between Rp 100 million and Rp 150 million.
In addition to the Rp 30 million, each family is also entitled to Rp 2.5 million to allow them to extend their rent periods.
The mudflow disaster, which engulfed four village and hundreds of hectares of farmland beginning May 29, 2006, was fed by mud that is still spewing from Lapindo’s gas exploration site.
