Rendi A. Witular and Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta – The government has stated that it would not withdraw nor revise a regulation on land acquisition for public development purposes, despite strong protests from some sections of the public.
Minister of Public Works Djoko Kirmanto said that because many infrastructure projects had run aground due to problems related to land acquisition, there was no other way for the government to resolve the problem other than to issue such a regulation.
"There are many cases in which the construction of infrastructure projects become stalled due to rejection by a single landowner," Djoko explained during a press conference after a meeting with Vice President Jusuf Kalla and other government officials to discuss the issue.
The government issued last month Presidential Regulation No. 36/2005 on land acquisition for public development purposes, which effectively allows the government to acquire land for crucial infrastructure projects even if the landowners have not agreed on the amount of compensation offered to them, thus providing certainty for crucial infrastructure development.
The stipulation, which allows the government to revoke the property rights of dissident landowners for the sake of the wider public good, has been the subject of heated protests by a number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The NGOs suspect that the ruling actually was issued to serve the interest of the wealthy infrastructure developers at the expense of the poor.
The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) on Tuesday sent a letter to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, urging him to revoke the new regulation as it was against human rights.
Komnas HAM described the regulation as "crueler than the land regulation issued under the previous New Order regime" and was similar to a ruling imposed by the Dutch colonial government, which could revoke private property rights.
Komnas HAM said that the use of the term "public interest" in the regulation to refer to the development of infrastructure facilities such as toll roads and airports does not necessarily serve the interest of the poor people.
"The development of toll roads has nothing to do with public interest because such roads will only serve the interests of the wealthy car owners," he claimed.
Meanwhile, head of the National Land Agency (BPN) Muhammad Lutfi, said that the government was committed to provide competitive compensation to landowners whose land would be affected by development projects.
He said that the amount of compensation offered to landowners would be based on the taxable value of their land and property (NJOP), as determined by an independent appraisal team.
However, the amount of the compensation would not exceed 20 percent of the NJOP, said Lutfi.
Critics, however, have said that such a mechanism would not necessarily ensure fair prices, especially if local administrations had not revised the NJOP each year – especially in rapidly developing cities.
Meanwhile, Minister of Information and Communication Sofyan Djalil said that the new land regulations would allow the government to press ahead with the construction of the East Flood Canal in the eastern part of Jakarta, and the construction of a few sections of the Jakarta Outer Ring Road toll projects, which have been stalled due to problems in land acquisition.