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.
Agriculture Ministry under pressure to release detained imports
The Indonesian Ombudsman has urged the Agriculture Ministry and other government bodies to solve a horticulture imports conundrum that has seen billions of rupiah worth of goods detained.
Change Size
A woman sells fruits at a stall at Gandok Market in Bandung, West Java. (JP/Anindito Ariwandono )
T
he Indonesian Ombudsman has urged the Agriculture Ministry and other government bodies to solve a horticulture imports conundrum that has been dragging on for weeks.
In a press conference on Monday, the Ombudsman recommended that the agriculture minister instruct the Agricultural Quarantine Agency (Barantan) executive to release detained horticultural imports “as soon as possible”.
“Indonesia is just about to rise, [as] we have passed COVID-19, and one of the efforts to create economic growth is to provide legal certainty and comfort for business actors,” Ombudsman member Yeka Hendra Fatika said in the briefing.
The Ombudsman explained that it had begun a consultation process with the Law and Human Rights Ministry regarding the issue on Sept.16 and had received a legal opinion on Sept. 20 stating that Barantan’s detainment was “not right” for goods that had arrived before May 18.
May 18 is the date the Trade Ministry issued regulation No. 5/2022 on horticultural import recommendations (RIPH).
Read also: Clash of trade, agriculture rules jeopardizes horticultural imports
The Ombudsman sent an inspection letter to the agriculture minister on Sept. 22, but the minister could not attend the summons and instead sent the horticulture director general to offer “conditional terms” explained in a press conference in the afternoon of the same day.
