The Joko “Jokowi” Widodo administration has decided to lift the government’s ban on exports of sea sand, which had stood for 20 years, amid the threat of environmental degradation to the country’s coastal environment. The sea sand export reinstatement came about while the government attempts to prohibit exports of more of the country’s critical minerals.

After failing to win sufficient political support to get his term extended beyond 2024, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo is maneuvering to make sure that whoever succeeds him will protect the legacy that he has built since taking power in 2014. Without a political party as his support base, however, he may find limitations to this role as kingmaker.

PT Kereta Cepat Indonesia Cina (KCIC) is hitting the gas on the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway (HSR) project to meet their promise of being fully operational by Aug. 18 this year by starting their first tests with a comprehensive inspection train (CIT) last week.  Some quarters, however, warned a short testing period could compromise safety.

The arrest of a top Cabinet minister on charges of corruption will alter the political landscape ahead of the February 2024 general elections, with presumptive presidential candidate Anies Baswedan and his chief sponsor, the NasDem Party, taking big hits.

Bank Syariah Indonesia (BSI), a subsidiary of banking state-owned enterprise (SOE) Bank Mandiri, was a victim of extortion, by criminal hacker group LockBit, of data that allegedly belonged to the sharia banking SOE, including employee data, records of about 15 million of its customers and 1.5 terabytes (TB) of internal data. The data breach created by the hacker group after BSI did not cede to LockBit’s demanded ransom over said data could make the bank liable for lawsuits.

With registration for the 2024 presidential and vice presidential candidates opening soon, Prabowo Subianto, Anies Baswedan and Ganjar Pranowo, the only figures with a realistic chance of winning the highest office, remain in search of their running mates. Potential names have been listed, though in the end, each will only choose a partner that can help them win.

The case of suspicious transactions involving the import of gold bars is now the top priority of the Prevention and Eradication of Money Laundering Task Force (TPPU). The task force, led by Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Mahfud MD, suspects the existence of a modus operandi of falsifying the Harmonized System (HS) code in the case of import duty and export tax evasion related to gold imports and exports, which caused a loss to the state of more than Rp 189 trillion (US$12.85 billion).

Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto is shaping up as the candidate to beat in the presidential race on Feb. 14, 2024, and is no longer the dark horse of earlier surveys.

The recent establishment of a state-owned Bank Syariah Indonesia (BSI) representative office in Dubai is part of the government’s plan to attract investors from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to join the sharia bank following last February’s announcement of divestment by two major shareholders, PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI) and PT Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI).

With the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) settling on Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo as its presidential candidate, the other parties are readjusting their positions with regard to their own nominations ahead of the 2024 elections. Parties that in the past formed alliances to field common candidates are revisiting their positions, and some are contemplating joining the PDI-P in supporting Ganjar’s candidacy.

The Development Finance Comptroller’s (BPKP) recent audit over PT Kereta Commuter Indonesia’s (KCI) capacity shows that the KCI is surprisingly not overcapacity – starkly different with the public perception and the KCI’s own audit. The BPKP audit result solved the recent disagreement over the KCI’s plan to imported used trains from Japan and prompted the government to tell the KCI to send its retired train cars to INKA for retrofitting, despite the latter’s unfamiliarity with Japanese-made cars.

Up until last week, Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto had faced pressures, from within and outside his Gerindra party, to quit the 2024 presidential race because all surveys overwhelmingly showed he could not beat any of the other two likely contenders, Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo and former Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan.

Pro-government political parties are making a move to build a grand alliance for the 2024 presidential election, which, if materialized, will turn the race into a three-way tie as has been widely predicted.

State-owned aluminum producer PT Indonesia Asahan Aluminium (Inalum) is now free from its duty in strategic planning as a mining holding company and can finally focus on its aluminum operations. President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has been eager to develop the country’s downstreaming industry by rolling out ore export bans, with washed bauxite export ban slated to start in June 2023, but stalled aluminum smelter development has deterred the plan.

Indonesia lost its right to host the soccer U-20 World Cup tournament less than two months before kick-off because of a domestic controversy about the participation of Israel, with which it is has no diplomatic ties.

The recent reporting of Deputy Law and Human Rights Minister Edward “Eddy” Omar Sharif Hiariej to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) over alleged bribery reopens a case of a suspected hostile takeover of nickel-mining company PT Citra Lampia Mandiri (CLM) by a group of people with connections to law enforcement officers and politicians.

The competition ahead of the 2024 elections is heating up as Megawati Soekarnoputri, chairwoman of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the biggest party in the ruling coalition, and President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo met on March 18 at the State Palace to discuss food sovereignty, foreign policy and the 2024 elections. Speculations are rife that the PDI-P may consider pairing election frontrunners Ganjar Pranowo and Prabowo Subianto, which could lower the chances of a runoff election.

After a tug-of-war in coal supply price negotiations for a coal-to-dimethyl ether (DME) conversion project with Indonesian state-owned enterprises (SOEs) Bukit Asam (PTBA) and Pertamina.

Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati has been coming under attack with allegations of massive corruption or fraud, not by her but by staffers in her ministry. These charges are not only hurting her personal reputation, but they also undermine the credibility and the public trust of the Finance Ministry, which oversees the Taxation Directorate General.

Another year, and it’s another blaze for PT Pertamina: on Feb. 3, a fire broke out at the state-owned energy holding company’s Plumpang depot in North Jakarta, killing 20 people living in a residential area in the depot’s vicinity. The incident has raised several questions, including how a residential area came to be developed so close to the fuel depot, who is to blame for the disaster, and whether the depot or nearby residents should be relocated to prevent the occurrence of similar incidents.

The campaign to keep President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo in power beyond his term, which ends in October 2024, continues, this time going through the court, making it harder for anyone to stop it without being accused of tampering with the country’s legal system.

The government opened up buffalo meat imports to provide a substitute for beef, the price of which has been rising, but the effort seems to have been undermined as the buffalo meat price has followed suit and risen as well. Alleged collusion between the State Logistics Agency (Bulog) and several distributors is said to be the reason behind the high buffalo meat price.

Mario Dandy Satrio, the son of a South Jakarta Tax Office official, has made a name for himself, albeit for the wrong reasons, after the South Jakarta Police arrested him and declared him a suspect in an assault case against the son of an executive of Nahdlatul Ulama’s (NU) youth wing, GP Ansor.

PT Dayamitra Telekomunikasi or Mitratel (MTEL) further cements its position as the biggest tower solutions provider in Indonesia as it finalizes a deal with Indosat Ooredoo Hutshison (ISAT) to purchase 997 of their towers to add to the 34,800 towers they owned as per September 2022. Prior to this deal, most of their towers were acquired from Telkomsel, a sister company to Mitratel and competitor to ISAT.

Here is what the court has established in the murder case of Brig. Nofriansyah Yosua Hutabarat: Second Agency Richard Eliezer fired five times at point blank and Insp. Gen. Ferdy Sambo, at the time the internal affairs chief of the National Police, finished the job by firing two more shots. Ferdy got the death sentence and Richard 18 months in jail as the South Jakarta District Court wrapped up the high profile murder trials last week.

Deputy State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) Minister Kartika Wirjoatmodjo announced an agreement had been reached between Indonesia and China regarding the amount of Jakarta-Bandung High Spseed Rail (HSR) project cost overrun, but the figure seems to be classified. The agreement resolved the dispute between both countries about the HSR project’s cost overrun, which had hampered its development progress.

When President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo exits the political stage in October 2024, Indonesia will likely be a more corrupt nation than when he moved into the presidential palace a decade earlier, unless he can turn things around. This is hardly a legacy that Jokowi wants to be remembered by.

The government has decided to increase the portion of domestic market obligation (DMO) of crude palm oil (CPO), the raw material of cooking oil, and slow down CPO exports to reign in the recent hike of government-sponsored, simple-packaged cooking oil Minyakita. The antimarket policy has irked industry players as it will again punish them more.

The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) has begun what it claims is the selection process to determine its presidential candidate, with talk of the party’s roster being narrowed to five currently unnamed party members. However, reflecting on PDI-P chair Megawati Soekarnoputri’s much talked about speech during the party’s 50th anniversary, the PDI-P’s presidential candidate selection process may well turn out to be little more than a formality.

The Nusantara Capital City (IKN) Authority has claimed huge investment interest from the private sector to invest in the capital city within the next two years, but businesses said they were actually taking a gamble by grabbing land in the capital city and would not really invest until a new government was formed after next year’s elections. Until then, investment will come mainly from the government – and state-owned enterprises.