East Java Governor Soekarwo has pledged to meet President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and summon energy company PT Lapindo Brantas Inc., as he attempts to mediate the compensation dispute between mudflow victims and Lapindo and the government.
Receiving representatives of up to 2,000 mudflow victims at the Grahadi gubernatorial office in Surabaya on Monday, Soekarwo, accompanied by vice governor Saifullah Yusuf, said he would immediately summon the management of PT Minarak Lapindo Jaya, a subsidiary of Lapindo, to demand its commitment to paying the remaining 80 percent of the compensation owed to mudflow victims, as required by Presidential Instruction No. 14/2007.
He said Lapindo and the Bakrie Family, majority owners of the company's shares, should have treated the mudflow victims humanely and not halted the compensation payment, which he said had worsened their anguish and financial burdens.
"We will seek a commitment from Minarak on the December 2008 deadline on the payment of the remaining 80 percent," he said after the meeting with the demonstrators' representatives.
He also said he could not meet the demonstrators' demands to pay the compensation in advance from the provincial budget because the administration had no special allocation for such a problem "and this could hamper the province's development programs".
Most residents of the four villages, buried under a giant pond of hot mud, received 20 percent of the compensation for their damaged assets to rent houses, soon after the presidential instruction was issued in 2007 with a clause that the remaining 80 percent be paid within a year (August 2008).
Of some 600 families hit by the mudflow and still living in temporary shelters at Porong Market, only 465 have received 20 percent of the compensation, while the rest have yet to receive any houses, after the construction of houses at the Nirwana village compound was halted.
Minarak has appealed several times to mudflow victims to exercise patience, after they staged a series of demonstrations and rallies both in Sidoarjo, Surabaya and the Presidential Palace in Jakarta, saying the company was running short of funds due financial problems plaguing the Bakrie Group. Soekarwo also said he would immediately leave for Jakarta to brief the President on the government's obligation to pay compensation to the residents of five villages outside the disaster site, which were devastated by the extended mudflow in February 2008.
Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said recently the government had allocated Rp 12 trillion from the 2009 state budget to compensate mudflow victims and relocate public infrastructure damaged by the mudflow.
Demonstration coordinator Suwito said this latest rally was a test case for Soekarwo's leadership, adding the victims would no longer rely on him if he could not mediate the compensation problem.
"The new governor and vice governor should prove their own words about mediating the compensation issue, otherwise they will lose the people's confidence," he said.
Suwito, who has sought refuge along with 565 other families in the Porong Market building for three years, said all the mudflow victims would likely leave for Jakarta to ask for the government and Lapindo to compensate them ahead of the legislative elections in early April
