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.
Govt to speed up land certification completion
The government will speed up land certification and redistribution two years faster than initially planned to help close the economic disparity gap, as the policy is a means for those in lower economic groups to climb the ladder
Change Size
T
he government will speed up land certification and redistribution two years faster than initially planned to help close the economic disparity gap, as the policy is a means for those in lower economic groups to climb the ladder.
Although the completion was behind target last year, the government remained upbeat that the program would be completed by 2023 from the initial target of 2025, said Agrarian and Spatial Planning Minister and National Land Agency (BPN) head Sofyan Djalil recently.
Since 1981, land certification has been carried out through the Agrarian National Operation Project (PRONA), where there are 126 million hectares of uncertified land. However, at the end of 2016, only 46 million ha out of 126 million had been certified.
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has intensified the land certification and redistribution program, demanding 5 million ha to be certified in 2017, 7 million ha in 2018, 9 million ha in 2019 and 10 million ha from 2020 and until 2023.
Sofyan said the agency had successfully registered and mapped out 5.26 million ha in 2017. But only 4.23 million ha could be certified as the remaining was involved in legal disputes or categorized as ownerless.
According to the prevailing regulations, the land certificates can only be given to the person whose name is registered in the land book.
“Hopefully we can certify all lands in 2023,” said Sofyan.
Poor people whose lands have been certified can use it to gain access to the banking sector as it can be used as collateral for loans or the land sold for capital.
The government has allocated a budget of Rp 2.4 trillion (US$179.04 million) for the certification program this year.
With the budget, the ministry will recruit around 3,000 land verification professionals. Currently, the ministry has recruited 5,500 professionals for the program.
“Our human resources are limited. Out of 19,000 employees, we only have 7,000 professionals for verification. Now, we have 5,500 and this year another 3,000,” Sofyan said.
Jokowi said land certification would also support many government projects, such as infrastructure development and replanting of crops for small-scale farmers.
Infrastructure development will face land clearing problems, while the replanting program will not progress as the fund can only be transferred if legal requirements, including the land certificate, have been completed.
“Usually, I am the one who wants the program to be finished faster, but now it is the minister who said he can finish it by 2023. OK, I will take note of this,” said Jokowi, recently.
The President also wanted to speed up the agrarian reform and land redistribution programs this year as the government would acquire the state’s unused land, whose commercial operation license (HGU), held by companies, have expired.
The land will be then redistributed to the poor for farming.
“We will redistribute it to the ones who need it, especially those in extreme poverty,” he said.
Land certification and redistribution are aimed at redistributing wealth, as Indonesia suffers from vast and growing inequality, which poses a risk to social cohesion.
Indonesia ranks fourth on the list of the world’s most unequal countries after Russia, India and Thailand, according to Credit Suisse’s 2016 Global Wealth Report.
