Integrated Coal System Launched; Luhut Talks of 'Rats' Disrupting State Revenue

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan emphasized the importance of system integration between ministries and institutions to prevent leakages in state revenues. Such a system has been applied in ten ports.

“This will be pushed and has been carried out even though it has not been effective yet in seaports and airports. We have applied an integrated system in ten seaports. But there are still many ‘rats’ that must be contained,” said Luhut in the launching event of the Coal Management Information System (Simbara) on Tuesday, March 8.

The government had integrated port data through the national logistics system (NLE). With the digital system, data of international goods and documents will be more organized from the arrival to the warehouse. This effectiveness eventually affected state revenues and investment opportunities.

In addition to logistics, the government has begun to integrate data and information on production and sales flows for the mineral and coal sector through Simbara.

Luhut said the launching event of Simbara was a good momentum after years of leaving the country's commodity industry processes from upstream and downstream untidied.

Luhut further hoped that the government will immediately clean up the messy data and collaborate with the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to take action against those committing fraud, taking benefits from the unintegrated data. The alleged fraud could be now identified through Simbara.

Read: State Revenue Grows 9.3 Percent YoY, Says Sri Mulyani

FRANCISCA CHRISTY ROSANA