The Jakarta Post, Jakarta Tue, 05/29/2012
The government has refused to take the blame for Lapindo’s slowness in paying compensation to the victims of the Sidoarjo mudflow, which has been ongoing since 2006.
“I have kept pushing Lapindo to pay the compensation as soon as possible. That’s all I can do,” Public Works Minister Djoko Kirmanto told reporters at the Presidential Office on Tuesday.
Gas exploration company PT Minarak Lapindo Jaya (MLJ), a subsidiary of PT Lapindo Brantas, which is partly owned by the family of Golkar Party chairman Aburizal Bakrie, recently announced that it had been struggling to compensate those affected as it was facing financial woes.
MLJ is still liable for Rp 1.02 trillion (US$109.46 million) in compensation for residents displaced by the disaster.
MLJ has been given a June deadline to pay Rp 400 billion of the Rp 1.02 trillion. The deadline has been extended numerous times.
Being unsure about MLJ’s ability to meet the deadline, hundreds of residents have protested by blockading a road used by MLJ trucks to carry mud from the site to a nearby river.
The protest, held earlier on Tuesday, was also part of the six-year commemoration of the disaster.
Djoko played down the protest by suggesting that the protesters did not understand the mechanism of compensation payments. “If you don’t really know about what is happening, don’t get mad at the government,” the minister said.
Both the government and Lapindo are paying compensation to affected residents.
The government has spent Rp 6.7 trillion in taxpayers’ money on compensation payments and reconstruction, and has budgeted Rp 500 billion for 2012 for the same purpose. Lapindo Brantas has paid only Rp 2.8 trillion of Rp 3.9 trillion in required compensation.
In total, it has been estimated that the government will spend more than Rp 9 trillion by 2014 on the Lapindo disaster.
( Oh, where has all that money gone, into who's pocket, every-one? Just a rake of on where's the flowers gone! siK.)
di 29 mei 2012 - 18:06