TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Energy Ministry has issued a recommendation for concentrate export to PT Freeport Indonesia amid the row over mining contract, Mukhtar Tompo, a member of the Commission VII of the House of Representatives (DPR), told reporters at the DPR building on Monday, March 20, 2017.
Tompo thought the recommendation letter quite peculiar considering the lack of clarity of Freeport’s mining contract, whether to keep its Contract of Work or to switch over to a special business mining permit (IUPK).
Read: Wanted a Win-Win Agreement with Freeport
“I found something odd during the 120-day deadline for negotiation, a recommendation letter for export that was issued was at odds with [the results] of a meeting held by the DPR’s Commission VII in February,” said the Gerindra Party politician. The meeting recommended the government not to renew Freeport’s export permit because it had failed to meet its obligation to build a smelter, he said.
Earlier in a meeting with the DPR’s Commission VII, who oversees energy and mining sectors, Tompo was threatened by the then-president director of Freeport Chappy Hakim for questioning the company’s capability to build a smelter.
Read: Freeport Business in Indonesia Will Not Return to Normal
Tompo added that Freeport filed for a permit to export concentrate on February 16, 2017, and the government had approved it a day after. The politician pointed out that it usually took roughly two months to grant a new export permit after a request is filed.
“I see that the government and Freeport have found a way to get around the DPR’s Commission VII’s recommendation [for the government] not to grant [a new permit] to export concentrates,” he said. The only way for Freeport to export concentrates is by switching over from CoW to IUPK, he stressed.
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