TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – The government is considered not serious on disciplining the 4,563 companies holding mining business permits that are not yet clean and clear. In fact, this commitment should have been completed last July.

“Currently, neither the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources nor the regional governments have seriously handled problematic permits,” said Coordinator of Publish What You Pay Indonesia, Maryati Abdullah, Tuesday, September 22, 2015.

According to Maryati, the government’s task should have been easier since the Corruption Eradication Commission through Minerba Coordination and Supervision noted a number of problems in these thousands of permits. For example, the KPK noted that the compliance with tax payments was only 29 percent or 2,304 IUP.

Another finding, as many as 4,843 of them did not have a Taxpayer Identification Number (NPWP). “Those who have an NPWP do not necessarily obey taxes, what about those who do not have it,” Maryati questioned.

He said the government’s lack of seriousness was also evident in controlling overlapping IUPs in forest areas. It is recorded that 25 million hectares of IUP land are in conservation forest areas, protected forests, or production forests.

In the guidelines for the Movement to Save Natural Resources, the criteria for a clean and clear mine are those that do not have problems administratively and carry out regular financial and environmental obligations.

According to the acting Director of Environmental Engineering at the Directorate General of Mineral and Coal, Adhi Wibowo, problematic IUPs are difficult to deal with because they are still in the inventory stage. The difficulty is verifying the companies holding IUP because most of them have changed their names or went bankrupt due to stopped operations.

He promised to complete the inventory as soon as possible. When this stage is completed, the Ministry will ask local governments to deploy a supervisory apparatus for further document collection. “The inventory stage is not easy,” said Adhi.