Already Received Letter From Luhut, BPKP Starts Auditing Palm Oil Companies

BPKP press conference. (Photo: VOI/Mary Handayani

JAKARTA - Head of the Financial and Development Supervisory Agency (BPKP) Muhammad Yusuf Ateh admitted that he had received a letter from the Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan regarding a request for an audit of palm oil companies. In fact, BPKP has already started the audit process.

"We have received a letter from Pak Luhut," he said at a press conference at the BPKP Building, Tuesday, June 14.

Currently, the process is still in the early stages of conducting research and seeking preliminary data. "For this audit, we have research and preliminary research, we don't actually go into the palm oil company," he explained.

According to the letter received by BPKP, Ateh said the audit process would be carried out at least in the next three months. However, he has not set a target when the overall audit will be completed. "This is just a research and preliminary, three months from now. And there is a possibility that it will also be extended (the audit process)," he explained.

Ateh also explained that in this early stage, what will be done is to explore the existing data in the government. For example, regarding permits that are in the relevant ministries or agencies. "What we checked at the beginning was whether there was a permit, was it true or not. We asked the government first, we asked the Ministry of Agriculture how many permits were there, to BPN (National Land Agency) how much land was, this one first," he said.

With this data, said Ateh, BPKP can only make criteria to carry out further audits related to palm oil companies.

"I'll just go to the field, is it true or not, maybe someone has a permit for only 1 hectare to make 2 hectares. Maybe protected forest land is being used, we are still collecting all of that, because we don't actually have data, this is a problem in the country. We collect (data) first, it doesn't suddenly come to palm oil companies," he said.

Previously, Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Bisar Pandjaitan said that the government's supervision of palm oil production companies had begun to be carried out by BPKP. This audit is one way to improve the governance of the palm oil industry from upstream to downstream.