South Sumatra Police Chief Taking Firm Action To Hoard Fuel

PALEMBANG - South Sumatra Police Chief Inspector General Toni Harmanto reminded that there should be no hoarding practices or the like for fuel oil (BBM) that can harm the community.

The South Sumatra Police Chief emphasized that the police carried out law enforcement related to this matter through a team that had been formed in each of the 17 regencies and cities to respond to the contingency of fuel price adjustments.

“We already have a team tasked with monitoring and enforcing the law. So we hope that there will be no hoarding of fuel and so on, meeting the needs of the community is a priority", he said as reported by ANTARA, Friday, September 2.

According to him, the team was formed based on the results of a cross-sectoral coordination meeting chaired by Governor Herman Deru some time ago at Griya Agung Palembang.

The results of the meeting, he said, included the South Sumatra Police and related agencies implementing a long-term plan, namely tightening supervision of fuel distribution from upstream to downstream.

It is to be noted that hoarding fuel is a criminal act as regulated in Article 55 of Law (UU) number 11 of 2022 concerning Job Creation, the threat of imprisonment is five years, and a fine of IDR 60 billion.

So, the former West Sumatran Police Chief said that shortly he would soon announce to the public several results of legal action in the South Sumatra region as regulated in the article above.

"Yes, so later there will also be several more law enforcement actions (related to fuel) in the South Sumatra region", he added, which will soon be announced to the public.

Meanwhile, the Director of the Special Criminal Investigation Directorate of the South Sumatra Police, Commissioner Barly Ramadhany, said that his personnel supervise and escort the distribution of fuel from the shelter to the Public Fuel Filling Station (SPBU).

However, he said, by the instructions and attention of the leadership under current conditions, the process was further tightened to deploy Polres personnel in every district and city.

"We have taken significant steps according to orders from the leadership", he said, including about law enforcement regarding the alleged practice of fuel misappropriation in South Sumatra, which the Kapolda will announce to the public soon.

"Yes, there is, we'll see, shortly we will take a joint action in the context of taking legal action", he said.