InfoSAWIT, BOGOR –Palm oil Draft which is one initiative of Legislators now has become one national legislation program in 2017. The draft is considered to be important to protect the strategic commodity, palm oil. It is now in process in the Legislators.
Sawit Watch and the like, such as, Madani, ICEL (Indonesian Center for Environmental Law), and IHCS (Indonesian Human Rights Committee for Social Justice) visited one fraction in the Legislators, Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa (PKB).In the meeting, the organizations proposed opinions and inputs about the urgency of the Draft or not.
Executive Director of Sawit Watch, Inda Fatinaware, told that the Draft is not important to publish. From the draft, Sawit Watch does not see that every issue in the Draft gives solution, such as, the overlapping, the area conflict, the labor, and the environment issues.
“In 2015, Constitutional Court sentenced on the Judicial Review (JR) of Plantation Laws that we proposed. We thought, the result of JR should be implemented and made in detail. Not in the form of new regulation,” Inda said in the official statement that InfoSAWIT got.
She also continued, the other organization and the civil society reject the Draft. For there are many chapters in the Draft have been regulated in the other regulations, and could be overlapping. The Draft has also no side to the smallholders.
Ibnu Multazam, the leader of legislation board of PKB said that his side is open to get inputs from the stakeholders. “After knowing the Draft, there would be clause to protect the smallholders to cultivate palm oil. But we need to learn more, to know the Draft would be overlapping to the other regulations, such as, the protection and empowerment for the smallholders, and the Plantation Laws, or not,” Ibnu said.
He also said, his side to the Draft is based on the same agreement mechanism. One thing for sure, the standing point of PKB is to defend the people. “We would not take side to give profit to the stakeholders (businessmen), namely those who violate the laws,” he said. (T2)
