Editor: Arnold Sirait
The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) discovered allegations of corruption in coal export activities that occurred in 2015. The cause is the difference in coal export volume between the Ministry of Trade and Customs and Excise which could lead to potential state losses.
Chairman of the Corruption Prevention Team for Natural Resources of the Corruption Eradication Commission, Dian Patria, said that in 2015, Customs and Excise recorded coal exports of only 390 million tons. Meanwhile, data from the Ministry of Trade is only 349 million tons.
(Read: Letter to Bappenas, Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources Increases Coal Production Target)
With this difference, the Corruption Eradication Commission estimates that potential state losses could reach US$ 677 million or around Rp. 9.02 trillion. “It could be that behind this anomaly there is an act of corruption. "The only challenge is that the bribes and permits have been looking for evidence for a long time, which is no longer easy," he said in Jakarta, Monday (31/7).
This difference in data is not just a one-time occurrence. According to Dian, in 2010 there were also differences in coal export volume data between the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources and data from the World Coal Institute (WCI).
WCI data states that Indonesia's coal exports in 2010 amounted to 298 million tons. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources claims that export data for that year was only 166 million tons. This means there is a difference of 132 million tons.
It didn't stop there, Dian said that the Corruption Eradication Committee (KPK) is currently continuing to track coal export data from these two agencies for the last three years. Even data for 2016 and 2017 was also included in the search. Only until now it cannot be opened to the public.
To avoid these anomalies, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) requested that institutional ministries standardize record keeping. "If I look at this, the current data is still between ESDM, the Ministry of Trade and Customs and Excise as well. Are you in or not inline," said Dian.
Apart from that, the Corruption Eradication Committee (KPK) is encouraging the existence of a task force (task force) to regulate and not carelessly grant export permits to mining entrepreneurs. Moreover, this permit is given to mining entrepreneurs who are not free from problems.
(Read: Transparency in Mining Business Permit Details Can Prevent Potential Corruption)
If there is no such supervision then mining companies that are not free from problems can obtain export permits from certain individuals at a related institution. One example is granting export permits to mining entrepreneurs located in conservation forest areas.
They should not have been able to get permission from the relevant ministry and this could have been regulated by the task force. "The problem is that this could have the potential for corruption," said Dian.
This coal management dispute has also received attention from the Indonesian Publish What Your Pay (PWYP) institution. PWYP Indonesia National Coordinator Maryati Abdullah said that the granting of coal export permits did appear to have increased in the period 2001 to 2010.
Coal licensing, which was initially only 750 permits in 2001, increased drastically to 10 thousand permits in 2010. This massive number of coal mining permits was due to the unsynchronized policy of the transition period from the central government to regional autonomy.
(Read: Coal Prices Improve, Bukit Asam Profits Skyrocket 242%)
"This is our challenge, how can we regulate permits and control production rates," said Maryati.
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