Ministry Of Home Affairs: Land Dispute Resolved With Central Government-Pemda

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Home Affairs (Kemendagri) encourages local governments together with the central government to be part of the solution and prioritizes good handling of land conflicts to accelerate national development.

"The increase in the number of land cases is an important concern to find a solution. If it is not handled optimally, it has the potential to hamper ongoing development programs," said Director General of Regional Administration of the Ministry of Home Affairs Safrizal ZA as reported by ANTARA, Tuesday, October 3.

He explained that regional disputes and land conflicts were due to the problem of administrative ground certification that was not orderly, imbalance in land ownership distribution; legality of land ownership which was solely based on formal evidence (certificates) without paying attention to soil productivity.

Then, there is no synchronization of the basic maps used in the problem solving process such as land boundary maps with boundaries for government areas (villages, sub-districts, regencies/cities, and customs).

Disputes or land conflicts between the government and residents can occur if certain conditions are not met. One of the reasons is that regional property is not managed properly in the form of land.

"This condition is exacerbated by the lack of thoroughness in the management of documents on the history of obtaining land parcels owned or controlled by the local government, while the land has been included in the documents of regional property," he said.

The Ministry of Home Affairs, continued Safrizal, did not turn a blind eye to land disputes by looking for solutions. In 2022 the Directorate General of Bina Adwil will conduct a mapping of land disputes and conflicts in West Java.

This is as support for building a database from the local government based on land cases in the regions with data on dispute mapping and land conflicts in the regions as data and information improvement for basic capital for handling land problems in the regions.

Based on the results of mapping disputes and land conflicts in Regencies/Cities in West Java Province and the Land Conflict Mapping Evaluation Meeting in the context of Handling Land Disputes and Conflicts in Regions held in April 2022, it is concluded that regional asset problems are problems that need priority handling by both the central government and local governments.

"Based on the cases reported to the Directorate General of Bina Adwil in 2022, 22 percent of the 227 cases (about 50 cases) are regional asset problems," said Safrizal.

This case is largely due to the irregularity of land administration, such as the warkah/riwayat of disputed land that is not well documented and complete or caused by the unregistered assets into the local government's asset registration or documentation system.

Therefore, local governments often lose if these problems continue into the realm of court cases.

Other land conflicts that are quite widely reported are related to the problem of customary land, which is 16 percent (about 36 cases).

One of the things that triggered the emergence of the customary land conflict was that it had not been registered and registered in the customary land.

This is because there are still many indigenous peoples who have not been identified and have not gone through the stipulation process as regulated in Permendagri Number 52 of 2014 concerning Guidelines for Recognition and Protection of Indigenous Law Communities.

In this case, it is necessary to synergize the role of the Regional Government and the Ministry of Home Affairs in carrying out governance against the Indigenous Law Community which is a mitigation of the emergence of customary land conflicts in the regions.

Another thing that causes disputes and land conflicts is the slow implementation of the land registration program, the implication of this causes the land to become idle (the status quo), so that it cannot be used for the welfare of the community or development.

"The conditions described above have an impact on both parties, both local governments and the community," he said.

On the one hand, the community does not get services related to the legality of land that has been controlled, and on the other hand, the government cannot maximize the management of regional wealth to obtain local revenue to finance other government affairs.

For this reason, Safrizal hopes that the implementation of this coordination meeting activity will be a means to obtain input or input related to the formulation of the preparation of a Memorandum of Understanding and Cooperation Agreement between the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Regional Government in the implementation of problem handling and land conflicts in the regions.