Jakarta – The government is unlikely to meet its target of distributing 5 million land certificates this year as part of its land-reform program because by October it had distributed less than half the target.
"We could publish half of the target," said Agrarian and Land Spatial Planning Minister Sofyan Djalil in Jakarta as reported by kompas.com on Friday. He referred to data collected up to the middle of October.
Previously, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo had instructed the minister to distribute 5 million free land certificates to farmers by the end of this year.
Jokowi demanded the minister be strict with regard to the target during the launch of an oil palm tree replanting program in Musi Banyuasin, South Sumatra, last week.
"This year, 5 million land certificates have to be distributed, next year, the figure becomes 7 million and the following year it becomes 9 million," he told 1,300 oil palm farmers during the event.
Sofyan said his ministry was facing various problems in issuing land certificates because ownership of many plots of land was disputed or still had the status of forest land.
But he expressed his optimism that his ministry could achieve 90 percent of the target by the end of this year. (bbn)