Harry Bhaskara, Jakarta – The government seems to be inconsistent when it comes to handling disasters. It reacted relatively quickly to the Aceh tsunami two years ago but it doesn't seem to want to know about the East Java mudflow.

A lot of questions should be raised about the government's handling of the disaster. Is it because there are no international donors involved in cleaning up the latest mess? Or is it because a fat cat and an influential minister is involved? Something stinks to high heaven here.

Six months since the hot, putrid mud gushed from the earth at the drilling site of PT Lapindo Brantas Inc. at the rate of 50,000 cubic meters a day, no one has been held accountable or punished for the disaster. This is despite strong evidence that Lapindo ignored important safety standards when it drilled the hole from which the mud began to spew.

In the meantime, the economic woes of the people in the area continue to rise. More than 12,000 people in six villages have been made homeless by the discharge, and many of them have reportedly had their health affected by the toxic gases rising from it.

At least 15 factories have been shut down by the thick dark sludge, more than 1,700 workers are now unemployed, the Surabaya Malang toll road has been closed numerous times, and the vital Surabaya-Malang rail link has been cut indefinitely.

At one point – when it really mattered – Lapindo was a unit of PT Energi Mega Persada, majority owned by the Bakrie group of companies, which is controlled by the family of Coordinating Minister for the People's Welfare Aburizal Bakrie.

However, Lapindo was recently sold to a company called Freehold Group Ltd. on Nov. 14; its owners can now avoid being held accountable for the disaster. Environmental group Greenomics has estimated the mudflow has caused Rp 33 trillion (US$3.6 billion) worth of damage to the area.

Last week, a 70-centimeter gas pipe close to the drilling site exploded, killing at least 11 people, including a local military chief. Such an incident, caused by the immense pressure from the constantly sinking ground, could have been avoided had the authorities heeded early warnings from experts.

The explosion is likely to disturb gas distribution to Pertamina's East Java clients and has delivered a further blow to the province's industry.

Last month, the government decided to channel the mud, four million cubic meters of it, to the sea. Environmentalists had warned that the mud would ruin marine life in the area and threaten the livelihoods of thousands of fishermen.

Despite this mess, the authorities have acted extremely strangely since the mudflow began.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla, a good friend of Aburizal's, avoided talking about the sensitive health and environmental issues besetting nearby villagers during his visit to the drilling site in June.

"This incident is the kind of fate that we have to face together," he was quoted by this newspaper as telling the locals. The Bakrie family, he said, would have to be on the frontline in resolving this problem.

Lapindo, meanwhile, was allowed to set the level of compensation it paid to the thousands of affected people. Many later said they had not been paid at all, or complained the compensation was not enough. Many said they had been asked to sign a statement waiving the right to take Lapindo to court when they received this compensation money.

While a criminal investigation was underway, Supreme Court Chief Justice Bagir Manan chirped up and said no further legal action was necessary. That seemed to be enough. Despite serious evidence of negligence, no one has been prosecuted under the nation's environmental laws.

Conflicts of interest when they involve powerful people and huge environmental disasters can create a bizarre public relations strategy.

Ludicrous measures have been taken to divert public attention from the real culprits of this mess. Scientists were brought down to the disaster site to demonstrate that every mud volcano has a silver lining – that the mud would make good quality bricks. Another time, in an imitation of a bad reality TV show, psychics were offered a reward if they could tame the continually spewing gas. They were unsuccessful.

Then a local production house reported that Lapindo had paid for a 13-episode TV soap opera to show the "heroic" role the company and authorities had played in the disaster.

A day after the pipe explosion, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said that the government would take steps needed to ensure that the situation would not "deteriorate further".

It was a mild response judging from the scale of the calamity. Compare this with his angry response when the government failed to act on information about an impending tsunami that hit southern Java earlier this year. But then the world was watching.

A deeper sense of crisis is needed in light of thousands of people who have lost their homes, are jobless and whose children have no schools to go to.

It is exactly these kind of scandals that people had hoped to stop hearing about during the reform era. That was the very reason why so many put their bets on Yudhoyono in the 2004 presidential elections. It now looks like a bad bet.

There is no time for complacency. The rainy season, with the power to destroy the government's flimsy embankments, will soon be upon us.