InfoSAWIT, JAKARTA – Sinergy among ministries/institutions for escalating palm oil governance is the job description of Coordinator Minister in Maritime and Investment, Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan that was just getting the mandate as Vice Chief Taskforce for Escalating Palm Oil Industrial Governance and Optimizing the Country’s Revenue based on Decision of President of Indonesian Republic Number 9 / 2023.
The first meeting of the taskforce was on Tuesday (18/4/2023), directly led by Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan. He told each taskforce member should cooperate to improve palm oil governance nationally.
He also hoped every planter could take advantages that the government would easily provide and obey every available regulation in running their business.
Smallholders in Asosiasi Petani Kelapa Sawit Indonesia (Apkasindo) hoped that the new policy might have been well considered. Unfortunately until now many regulations published by related ministries have no good hopes and realization in the field.
Chairman of Apkasindo, Gulat ME Manurung said the regulations, for instance, Perditjen KLHK, Perditjenbun, Permen KLHK, Permentan, Permen ATR BPN, Kepres, Inpres, and the last UUCK. “Everything does not run well because they cover many ministries/institutions. There are sectoral egos in every ministry/institution,” he said, as in the official statement to InfoSAWIT, Tuesday (18/4/2023).
He also mentioned, the areas where smallholders have been cultivating for decades and even got certificate from National Land Agency, should be easily denied by Ministry of Environment and Forestry by saying theirs are forest regions.
The publication of President’s Instruction Number 6/2019 about National Action Plan of Sustainable Palm Oil or Rencana Aksi Nasional Kelapa Sawit Berkelanjutan (RAN-KS), followed up by President’s Regulation Number 44 / 2020 about Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO), but the fact, every region (plantation) in RAN KSB is hardly categorized in forestry region. How about ISPO? The terms and conditions about ISPO are that the plantations is not in forest region and the spatial should be adjustable.
“We are tired of the obstacles. We want something useful for revenue but give us resolution. The ultimate remedium in forest regions would be only 7 months (November 2023). We can do nothing,” he said.
He thought, it is significant to publish data base on palm oil plantations in Indonesia that palm oil taskforce would perfect. It is normal if the president published his regulation because with no accurate data, the outcome of palm oil industries from upstream to downstream would be prediction only.
He continued, from these, not only the country gets loss but every stakeholder with no exception. One thing for sure, the smallholders are cornered and we delivered five massages for the taskforce, the first, prioritize to help and accomplish our problems (decide plantation regions) in the other words, categorize the existing smallholders’ palm oil plantations in forest regions before the publication of UUCK (2020). This is the major thing.
The second, improve fresh fruit bunch (FFB) governance produced by the smallholders because for all these years, there have been gap between crude palm oil (CPO) price in the domestic and in the globe with smallholders’ FFB price.
The third, taskforce should support smallholders’ replanting program (SRP) and should have regulation that existing smallholders’ plantation before 2020 can join SRP. It could increase the revenue by the increasing productivity from SRP. It is said that FFB production could increase twice or three times more than before SRP.
The fourth, the taskforce would share job description in upstream – downstream sectors by assigning PTPN and smallholders’ plantation to be in charge to fulfil palm oil needs in the domestic and other corporates to deal with exports.
The fifth, smallholders proposed that output of the assignment from taskforce would end in one point, which is, to establish Badan Nasional Sawit Indonesia (BNSI) which is managed by President. “In the future palm oil in the two sectors would be dealt by BNSI,” he said
General Secretary of Apkasindo, Rino Afrino said that it would be easy to realize 100 thousand tons of CPO in the same time of one century of Indonesia’s independence -day for having Luhut Pandjaitan as the Taskforce Vice Chief.
“I think the key words in the output of the taskforce are obedience, accountability, transparency, sustainability, and productivity,” he said.
Apkasindo hoped, the taskforce would not deliver difficulty for smallholders by publishing many regulations which eventually the smallholders cannot realize. (T2)
