Palmoilmagazine.com, JAKARTA – Fresh fruit bunch (FFB) stealing is a serious problem for many stakeholders and smallholders. The cause from stealing always does not reach minimal limit up to 2,5 million rupiah. This is the chance for criminals to apply misdemeanor as their modus to the same act.
That is why there was proposal so that misdemeanor should not be available in palm oil stealing concerning that it was difficult to put the criminals in jail and delivering long term – impact from their crime.
In a chit-chat of whatsapp group of Indonesian Planters Society (IPS), it was not easy thing to put palm oil criminals into jail. Palm oil was planted in a very large plantation. It would be a challenge to monitor the plantation.
“Besides, the criminals are smart and organized. It is difficult to caught them in red handed. If they are caught, they could be as spies to the next stealing. This becomes more difficult for the next legal process effectively,” one member of whatsapp IPS, that Palmoilmagazine.com is one of the members.
For palm oil stealing does not reach the minimal limit of loss or up to 2,5 million rupiah in misdemeanor, the criminals can avoid their sentence that they should be. Though individual loss might be small (in numbers) but when the stealing always happens, there would be significant numbers. “In a long term, the economic impact for the company and the country would be much bigger than the direct losses,” other member wrote.
In fact, palm oil is one biggest exchange contributor out of tax for the country. It is clear that FFB stealing delivers losses not only for the companies and smallholders but also for the country in a whole.
The issues in palm oil production could minimize the exchange and be unstable for CPO trade in the globe. That is why, it is important to get legal protection in palm oil industries.
“We propose that misdemeanor in FFB stealing should not be available anymore. There should be firm and proportional sentence for the criminals that are smart and organized. It needs to review the available regulation to get better protection for palm oil industries and the country in a whole,” the member of the group, said.
Actually, it needs collaboration among the government, palm oil companies, and smallholders to deal with the issue to get law enforcement more effective, escalate monitoring and supervision, socialization for the people to protect palm oil as strategic commodity in national scale. (T2)
