President Instructs Minister to Issue Certification of Land at Large Scale
Photo Caption: President Jokowi leads a limited meeting on Agrarian Reform on Wednesday (24/8), at the Presidential Office, Jakarta
President Joko Jokowi Widodo has given a target for Minister of Agrarian and Spatial Planning/National Land Agency Sofyan Djalil to accelerate the certification of land on a large scale.
Therefore, the President suggested the Minister to cooperate with the regional governments at provincial and regency/city levels.
Try to focus only on one, two, or three provinces. Hovever, the number of provinces will increase every year. It will be a great leap if we can issue at least 5 million land certification per year, President Jokowi said during a limited meeting on Agrarian Reform on Wednesday (24/8), at the Presidential Office, Jakarta.
The President believes agrarian reform will be a new way to tackle poverty and economic inequality, particularly in the villages.
The spirit of agrarian reform is an equality in land usage, ownership, and the fair utilization of land, area, and natural resources, the President said.
Agrarian reform is also expected to be a new way to solve agrarian conflicts among the people, or between private sector and the Government.
Thus, President Jokowi instructed related ministries/institutions to accelerate the implementation of agrarian reform.
Materialize one map policy, syncronize all law systems and regulations so there will be no dualism and multiple interpretations that will lead to agrarian conflicts, the President said.
On that occasion, President Jokowi also called on his officials to manage land sector by issuing legal certification of assets.
The President asserted that the previous situation must not happen again; when people takes years to obtain certificate, while company only takes days to obtain the certificate.
This should be reversed, the President added.
The President also instructed related ministries/institutions to immediately implement the program of providing access to land through land redistribution, particularly for land-use permits (HGU) that has not be renewed, abandoned and free lands, as well as utilizing the forest to bring great benefit for the people.
Educate the people to improve land use to be more productive, the President said.
In his remarks, President Jokowi delivered the result of the latest survey from the National Statistics Agency (BPS) saying that we need to pay attention to the poverty in villages.
Therefore, the Govenment will concentrate to tackle poverty problem in villages through several approaches, including by accelerating infrastructure development in villages, optimizing village budget to productive sectors, and open a wider access to investment through Smallholder Business Credit (KUR).
Moreover, the President also considered that it needs some breakthroughs to solve land access problem, inequality in land ownership in villages.
The President said that most farmers in villages are laborers who have no land, or small farmers who own less than 0.3 hectares per person.
These two categories of farmers, the President added, have very low income.
Due to the low income level, farm laborers and small farmers are most vulnerable to rising food prices and thus likely to increase urbanization, the President said.
The President hopes agrarian reform will be a new way to tackle poverty and economic inequality, particularly in the villages.
Coordinating Minister for the Economy Darmin Nasution, Minister of State Secretary Pratikno, Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung, Minister of Villages, Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration Eko Sanjoyo, Minister of Trade Enggartiasto Lukito, Minister of Agriculture Amran Nasution, Minister of Environment and Forestry Siti Nurbaya, Minister of Agrarian and Spatial Planning/National Land Agency Sofyan Djalil, Minister of Cooperatives, Small and Medium Enterprises Puspayoga, and Head of Development Finance Comptroller (BPKP) Ardan Adiperdana also attended the limited meeting. (RMI/DND/OJI/ES) (RAS/EP/YM/Naster)
