IMA Calls Illegal Mining Still The Government's PR

JAKARTA - Chairman of the Indonesian Mining Association (IMA) Hendra Sinadia opened his voice regarding the existence of illegal mines near IKN Nusantara.

Hendra assessed that the governance of the mining sector in Indonesia has continued to show significant progress in the last 15 years.

However, he regretted that many illegal mining activities were still government homework.

"If we look at the mine management in Indonesia, in the last 15 years, we have continued to go towards a better direction, yes, on the right track," Hendra told the media crew, Wednesday, July 23.

Hendra highlighted the government's efforts to make improvements since 2010, including the unclear reduction of mining permits and the implementation of the digitalization system in reporting mining business activities.

In fact, he said, in 2010 there were 15,000 mining permits which were then coordinated by the Minerba supervision with the establishment of corruption prevention which also involved the KPK.

"Finally, this permit starts to be fixed and which ones are clear and clean, which ones are non-clear and clean," he continued.

Although governance has improved, Hendra said illegal mining is still an unresolved challenge.

According to him, this phenomenon does not only occur in the mining sector, but also in other sectors.

Even if this Pet activity is still an issue, it's been an issue not only for the last 10 years or even from decades. The pattern is almost the same everywhere, if commodity prices are high again, yes, illegal activities will definitely run rampant," he explained.

Hendra emphasized that the government and security forces had made various efforts to deal with illegal mines.

However, achieving the zero illegal mining condition is still a big challenge.

"I think the handling has been carried out by the government and also the security forces. Only to eradicate until zero, this is our hope with the formation of the Directorate General of Law and Human Rights," said Hendra.