PALMOILMAGAZINE, JAKARTA – Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment, Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, stated that improving palm oil governance could be achieved by implementing the Mineral and Coal Information System (SIMBARA), which has already proven successful with other commodities.
He highlighted that SIMBARA has effectively enhanced commodity governance through better integration and suggested that applying a similar system to palm oil could increase revenue.
“We will complete the data, and it will lead to more revenue,” Pandjaitan said, as quoted by Palmoilmagazine.com from DDTCNews, Sunday (September 22, 2024).
Initially developed for the coal sector, SIMBARA has since expanded to include tin and nickel. Pandjaitan emphasized that implementing SIMBARA for other commodities, such as palm oil, would be crucial for improving governance and ensuring more accurate data collection.
Pandjaitan thought, palm oil plantations in Indonesia laid on about 17 million hectares. The numbers were much wider than those that laid on about 12 million hectares. He believed the improvement would contribute to the revenue from natural resource sectors.
He also said that every ministry should support it by providing data needed. “I know that any ministry did not provide its data. I would report it to the elected president. It needs to be improved by having audit from Badan Pengawas Keuangan and Pembangunan,” he said.
Developing SIMBARA started in 2020 by having cooperation among the government’s institutions, such as, general directorate of budget, general directorate of tax, general directorate of customs, and others with Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Ministry of Trade, Ministry of Transportation, and Indonesian Bank.
SIMBARA integrates the system and data to manage mineral and coal sectors, starting from the plans, payment obligation to the revenue and the clarification in the ports.
Prior, Minister of Finance, Sri Mulyani Indrawati also said that SIMBARA would be potentially getting expansion for every mineral commodity, including palm oil. She believed SIMBARA would help the government to increase the services, reinforce the monitoring, and optimize the revenue in mineral and coal sectors. (P2)
