Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo
Statement: In the past three years, there are no forest and land fire [across the country].
Fact: According to the latest data from the Environment and Forestry Ministry, thousands of hotspots are still detected across the country from 2016 to 2018, although its number is decreasing from year to year.
Hours after Jokowi uttered the statement during the debate, the ministry tweeted in its official account @KementerianLHK defending Jokowi's statement: "The term of 'no forest fire occurs' can be perceived as there have been no forest and land fire-related disaster occurred in the past several years. [...] Since 2017, there are no transboundary haze incident."
On Monday, Jokowi corrected his statement. "What I meant was that we were able to handle forest and land fire in the last three years, so the number of fire case was decreasing significantly," Jokowi said on Monday, as quoted by tempo.co.
Statement: The government has fined 11 companies totaling around Rp 18.3 trillion (US$1.29 billion) for damaging environment.
Fact: The Environment and Forestry Ministry sued 19 companies for allegedly damaging environment – 11 of which have been declared guilty in separate cases, ranging from forest fires to illegal logging. The company are required to pay for fines and restitution fees amounting Rp 18.9 trillion.
However, none of the companies have transferred the restitution fee to the state coffers, as courts have yet to execute its ruling against the corporations. The courts argued the execution would need to wait for the case review process to be done first before forcing each company to pay the fee. This statement was made despite of a provision in the 2009 Supreme Court Law stipulating a guarantee that case review process does not hinder the execution of court rulings.
Statement: We are producing 33 million ton of rice while consuming around 29 million tons. It means we have a surplus of around three million tons.
Fact: In October 2018, Statistics Indonesia (BPS) announced last year's rice production was estimated at 32.42 million tons, while household spending was at 29.57 million tons, putting the surplus at 2.85 million tons.
Such data, however, were different than the one issued by the Agriculture Ministry. According to the ministry, last year's rice surplus was at 13.03 million tons, with total rice production estimated at 46.5 million tons and spending at 33.47 million tons.
Researcher from civil society group AURIGA Nusantara, Iqbal Damanik, said the issue on this data difference should be resolved "in order to prevent any mistakes in import regulation."
Statement: In the last 4.5 years, there have practically been no [land] conflicts caused by land acquisition for infrastructure project.
Fact: According to a report issued by the Agrarian Reform Consortium (KPA) in January, there were at least 16 agrarian conflicts related to infrastructure development in 2018, which deals with 4,859 hectares of land.
The consortium argued the construction of infrastructure across the country had been using approaches such as land grabbing and mass eviction which were often followed by repressive actions from law enforcers.
Prabowo Subianto
Statement: The infrastructure construction under Jokowi's administration are done inefficiently. There are many infrastructure being built without proper feasibility study, causing high financial loss.
Fact: An analyst with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), Elrika Hamdi, said all contractors are required to do feasibility study and have detailed engineering design prior to constructing infrastructure.
"It is impossible for them to start the construction project if these two things are not fulfilled," Elrika said.
However, the quality of the study and design were differed from one study to another, especially in their relation to their potential effect to the environment. Elrika added feasibility study and detailed engineering design documents should not only include technical and financial aspects, but also environmental conservation as well as protection for gender equality and indigenous community.
Statement: Indonesian sugarcane farmer have harvested their yields, but the government keeps importing millions of tons of sugar from other countries.
Fact: In September last year, the Trade Ministry had agreed on allowing import for 2.38 million tons of raw sugar for industrial needs; comprising of import approval for last year's first semester import for 1.8 million ton as well as additional 577,000 ton for import until the end of 2018, kontan.co.id reported.
The approval was made despite of the domestic sugar production which had reached around 2.1 million tons in 2018, as stated by the Indonesian Sugarcane Farmers Association (APTRI) in a statement issued July last year.
"Combined with other factors such as the remaining stock of sugar from 2017 and the number of refined sugar that entered the consumer market, the national sugar stock could reach up to 5.1 million tons. It had exceeded our national needs of only 2.8 million tons in 2018," APTRI said.
Statement: For dozens of years, big companies have disposed their wastes and are avoiding taxes.
Fact: Iqbal Damanik from AURIGA Nusantara said the tax compliance among palm oil companies stood around 46.3 percent, according to the result of evaluation conducted by the National movement to Save Natural Resources (GNP-SDA), which was initiated by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).
"The evaluation showed that tax revenue in the sector was only about Rp 18.13 trillion from the potential revenue of Rp 40 trillion. It means that there is around Rp 21.87 trillion tax potential that has never been fully tapped," he said.
– Kharishar Kahfi, Jakarta
Source: https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2019/02/19/debate-round-2-fact-check.html