Regarding The Smelter Factory Fire In Morowali, Commission VII DPR Asks For President Jokowi's Order To Be Implemented

The victims of the smelter furnace explosion were moved from the ambulance to the plane to be flown to Makassar for further medical treatment, Friday (12/29/2023). (ANTARA/HO-Humas PT IMIP)

Deputy Chairman of Commission VII DPR RI Eddy Soeparno asked the relevant ministries and institutions to immediately carry out the order of Indonesian President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) regarding the nickel smelter fire belonging to PT Indonesia Tsingshan Stainless Steel (ITSS) in Morowali Regency, Central Sulawesi on Thursday, December 28 afternoon.

The President asked the company operating the smelter to tighten supervision by conducting a Work Safety and Health audit (K3). The fire caused by the explosion of the smelter stove killed 19 workers.

"President Jokowi's message is clear that work safety must be unified. The successive fire incident at these 2 smelters shows that the aspect of supervision must be tightened," said Eddy in his statement, Monday, January 1.

The Secretary General of PAN emphasized that President Jokowi's message to make stricter supervision should not only be carried out in Morowali smelters, but also smelters throughout Indonesia.

"This means that the audit of the smelter factory must be tightened. Not only at the smelter factory in Morowali but in all smelter companies operating in Indonesia as previously ordered," said Eddy.

In addition to audits, Eddy also encouraged law enforcement officials to announce the results of open investigations from fires at ITSS and PT GNI and enforce the law consistently.

"If there are fatalities of up to 19 people, it means that there is a violation of the law of negligence which resulted in casualties. Of course there must be strict law enforcement against anyone who is negligent and must be punished," he said.

During the investigation from the police and audits from the government, this member of the DPR for the Bogor City electoral district requested that the operations of the smelter company be temporarily suspended.

"During the investigation and audit, operations must be temporarily suspended," he concluded.

Previously, President Jokowi admitted that he was concerned that the explosion case in the smelter did not only occur once. According to him, the operation of the smelter is not easy considering that the object has a high heating system.

"So that the name is in the construction (smelter), in making it, the safety element really has to be number one," said Jokowi in Jakarta, Saturday, December 30.

The former mayor of Solo and governor of DKI Jakarta also reminded related parties to always pay attention to safety elements in the construction of smelters. Jokowi said that currently the police are still investigating the cause of the explosion.

"So the audit must be audited, the checking must be doubled if necessary in triple-in, so that incidents that have happened once or twice do not happen again," said Jokowi.