DPR Leadership Holds Audience With KPA And A Number Of Ministers Discuss Agrarian Reform

Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives Sufmi Dasco Ahmad and Sana Mustopa during an audience with KPA. Photo: Screenshot of the DPR RI YouTube.

JAKARTA - The leadership of the DPR RI received an audience from the Agrarian Reform Consortium (KPA) to listen to input related to strategies to accelerate the implementation of agrarian reforms. This audience was held in the House of Representatives Commission XIII room, parliament complex, Senayan, Jakarta, Wednesday, September 24.

The audience was led by Deputy Speaker of the Indonesian House of Representatives, Sufmi Dasco Ahmad, accompanied by Deputy Speaker of the Indonesian House of Representatives Cucun Ahmad Syamsurizal and Saan Mustopa. Also present were Chairman of Commission IV of the House of Representatives Titiek Soeharto and Deputy Chairman of Commission IV of the House of Representatives Alex Indra Lukman and Panggah Susanto.

The audience was also attended by a number of ministers of the Red and White Cabinet, namely the Minister of Forestry Raja Juli Antoni, Minister of ATR/BPN Nusron Wahid, Minister of State Prasetyo Hadi, Minister of Villages and Development of Disadvantaged Regions Yandri Susanto, Minister of Tourism Widiyanti Putri Wardhana, and Head of KSP Muhammad Qodari.

"Welcome to the House of Representatives," said Dasco. Dasco then invited the KPA representatives to deliver a statement.

Secretary General of KPA, Dewi Kartika said that her party, which consists of 139 organizations, ranging from farmer organizations, fishermen to indigenous peoples, encourages agrarian reform in accordance with the constitutional mandate of Article 33 of the 1945 Constitution, TAP MPR IX/2021 concerning agrarian updates and natural resources management.

Dewi also said that her party encouraged the DPR to form an agrarian reform special committee to monitor the unresolved resolution of agrarian conflicts in all regions.

"We ask the DPR leadership to form an agrarian reform special committee so that with this special committee the monitoring function of the DPR leadership, the faction can check agrarian reform, how many cases are finished. We want to be nationally systematic, and all agrarian conflicts that are already in the hands of Mr. Nusron, Mr. Raja Juli will immediately be executed and supported by the ministry," said Dewi Kartika.

Meanwhile, in his written statement, KPA conveyed that the wave of people's anger was caused by the fundamental problems of inequality in land tenure and production sources controlled by economic and political elite groups. According to KPA, inequality has created a socio-economic gap.

"During the lives of the people who are increasingly poor due to land loss, the loss of employment by mass layoffs, the people are still being blackmailed by strangling taxes, revocation of subsidies, and rising prices for basic necessities," the statement said.

"In the midst of this bitterness, the people are displayed by political elites and super-rich people in Indonesia who continue to produce policies that benefit private and group life, regardless of the interests of the people at large," he added.

KPA also said that there were 24 agrarian structural problems. One of them, inequality in land tenure is getting worse and the expulsion of villagers from the land under construction, settlements, and their villages.