Electronic Land Certificates May Worsen Agrarian Conflicts: KPA

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Agrarian Reform Consortium (KPA) Secretary-General Dewi Karika argued that the validation process of electronic land certificates has the potential to worsen agrarian conflicts.

The Indonesian government through the Agrarian and Spatial Planning Ministry or the National Land Agency (BPN) issued a ministerial regulation on e-certificate for lands and planned to replace the authentic land certificate with a digital one.

"This kind of process potentially worsen agrarian conflicts, reinforce inequality and land monopoly by private and state enterprises," said Dewi in a statement, Thursday, February 4.

She reiterated that the digitalization would begin from lands owned by the government and business entities that would be validated and stored in an electronic file system that could be printed by owners when needed.

The critical process, she opined, sparked questions such as the validation. “Will it be carried out unilaterally by BPN or applicants from state institutions and enterprises? What is the position of the community in the validation process? Because many certified lands are still in dispute,” Dewi said.

Dewi underlined that the process would be detrimental for the public. “Many land certificates of business entities are located in areas of structural agrarian conflict that must be first resolved, released from the claims of the government or business.”

FRISKI RIANA