A Year Ago, Basking In Billions Of Rupiah, Bought 176 'luxury' Cars, Residents In Tuban Village Are Now Your Fate

Illustration-Unsplash

JAKARTA - Last February 2021, residents of Sumurgeneng Village, Jenu District, Tuban Regency, East Java caused a stir. Working as farmers every day, residents suddenly become billionaires from the land acquisition for an oil refinery construction project covering an area of 21,410 square meters.

On average, residents receive billions of rupiah in compensation when their land is purchased by Pertamina. Interestingly, after receiving billions of rupiah, residents 'compactly' bought luxury cars. In fact, the process of bringing cars to residents' homes was directly escorted by police escort patrols (Patwal).

The video of the arrival of this luxury car went viral and grabbed the attention of netizens. One of the accounts that uploaded is an account called Berkelana to the Tuban Information Network (Jitu) Facebook group with the caption "Barokallah and three hand-holding emoticons". Suddenly the post was flooded with comments.

The Sumurgeneng Village Head (Kades), Gihanto, when confirmed, confirmed the viral upload of buying a car. The car was bought from Surabaya by residents using money from land compensation for an oil refinery project.

"Yes, sir, it's true, residents bought them in groups last Sunday, February 14. A total of 17 cars were purchased and all of them were new Toyota brands," he said when confirmed, Tuesday, February 16, 2021.

Twitter screenshot of citizen buying a car

The residents bought a new car using money that came from paying land compensation for the Tuban Refinery or New Grass Root Refinery (NGRR) construction project in the Jenu District area. They have taken the land compensation money through the process of determining the consignment at the Tuban District Court.

"Residents have taken land compensation money through a consignment and some of the money was used to buy cars," said Gihanto.

Gihanto explained that in this village there were 176 new cars purchased by residents since they received compensation for the oil refinery land until now. Where, there is one resident who buys 2 to 3 cars using the money.

"There are about 176 new cars that residents have bought, that's not even used cars. People bought them using money from land acquisition for the refinery project. One person bought two to three cars," he said.

In Sumurgeneng Village, there are about 280 residents or land owners who are affected by the oil refinery construction project. All residents have agreed to sell their land for the construction of the National project.

"All residents of Sumurgeneng have agreed to sell their land for the construction of an oil refinery," said the village head who also bought a new white Avanza car.

The price of compensation for land owned by residents is priced at an average of around IDR 680,000 per square meter. The determination of the value of the land owned by residents has been decided by the Public Appraisal Service Office (KJPP) after calculating the price through appraisal. "The price of land compensation here is around Rp. 600 thousand and the highest is Rp. 800 thousand per square meter," he said.

On average, the residents of Sumurgeneng Village get land compensation for an oil refinery construction project of Rp. 8 billion. In addition, the compensation received by residents is at least Rp. 35 million and at most Rp. 28 billion.

The fate of today's citizens

Contrary to the situation a year ago, Tuban residents are now complaining. Cuan billions of compensation received sold out. There were several residents who said they regretted selling their land.

On the Twitter homepage, for example, the hashtag Rp. 2.5 billion was suddenly trending and was discussed by netizens. The emergence of this hashtag stems from the confession of several farmers in Tuban who regret selling their land.

The farmers' disappointment was also expressed by holding a demonstration at the PT Pertamina Grass Root Revenery (GRR) office in Tuban.

Musanam (60), one of the farmers who regrets selling the land, demands Pertamina to keep its promise to provide jobs. To survive after running out of money, Musanam was forced to sell his cow.

"I used to have six cows, three have been sold for daily living and there are three left," said Musanam at the demonstration site.

Mugi (59), another resident expressed the same bitterness. Previously he owned a land area of 2.4 hectares and received compensation of Rp. 2.5 billion. Mugi's money has been used up for his daily needs. Some of it is saved.

Mugi, as well as other residents who held the action, asked Pertamina to keep its promise in providing jobs. In the past, before selling the land, Mugi claimed that Pertamina had promised him a job.