IAW: Rempang Eco-City a Governance 'Time Bomb' for Prabowo Government

JAKARTA - The Founding Secretary of Indonesian Audit Watch (IAW) Iskandar Sitorus said that Rempang Eco-City left governance issues that must be immediately corrected by the government of President Prabowo Subianto. Do not let a bad precedent occur for other national strategic projects. "Rempang is a mirror of how a country builds investment when land, community, spatial planning, and social legitimacy issues are not fully resolved," said Iskandar through his written statement quoted on Monday, June 29. According to Iskandar, the Rempang issue is not only related to the entry of large investments from Xinyi Group as well as the development of the glass and solar panel industrial area. The project reflects the country's challenges in balancing the acceleration of investment with the resolution of agrarian conflicts, legal certainty, and the protection of community rights. Moreover, during the reign of President Joko Widodo, Rempang Eco-City was encouraged as part of the national strategic investment agenda. Xinyi Group was then the main investor with a large investment value and the projection of tens of thousands of jobs. "Investment should not move faster than legal certainty. When agrarian issues that have lasted for years have not been resolved, the state has accelerated the investment agenda. That's where the root of the problem begins to be seen," he said. Iskandar reminded, long before the Rempang Eco-City was introduced, the community that was included in HIMAD PURELANG had fought for certainty of land rights through various administrative and legal channels. "This issue should be the first job of the state. But what happened was the opposite. The narrative of investment was first built, while the basic problem-solving was still going on," said Iskandar. "If a project as big as Rempang Eco-City can cause conflicts just because of communication, it means there are more fundamental problems in the quality of planning, coordination, and control of policies," he said. Iskandar said that there were findings of maladministration from the Indonesian Ombudsman in the development of Rempang Eco-City which he said showed the need for an evaluation of the project's governance. In addition, there are five aspects of governance that need to be the government's attention based on its study. First, the quality of policy planning, namely ensuring the status of land, spatial planning, recognition of old villages, and the readiness of the community's social issues are resolved before strategic projects are carried out. Second, inter-agency coordination is considered to be strengthened considering the many agencies involved in the management of Rempang. Third, internal control of the government by taking lessons from various findings of the Financial Audit Agency regarding the weaknesses in planning, internal control, coordination, and asset management in various government agencies. The fourth aspect is risk management. According to Iskandar, social risks must be positioned as important as investment risks and technical risks. "When people feel they are not heard, social legitimacy will weaken. In the end, this condition can actually increase the risk for investment itself," he said. Meanwhile, the fifth aspect is public communication. According to him, the government at that time conveyed more about the value of investment and economic benefits than explaining the status of land, protecting people's rights, and resolving agrarian issues. Therefore, Iskandar assessed that Rempang's experience must be an important lesson for the government of President Prabowo Subianto. According to him, the government is not enough to decide whether the project will continue or be stopped, but must also fix the governance so that similar problems do not re-emerge in other strategic projects. He encouraged the government to follow up on the Ombudsman's recommendations, clarify the legal status of the area, resolve the rights of the community in a transparent manner, strengthen cross-ministerial and inter-agency coordination, and ensure that any new investment is in an area that already has legal certainty. "The public should no longer be served with investment figures. What the public needs is legal certainty, openness of information, and assurance that their rights are still protected," he said. For Iskandar, the measure of success of development is not only seen from the influx of investors, but also from the quality of governance that the government has built. "The most important thing is how the country builds investment with the right governance. Strong investment is not the fastest investment to be announced, but investment that is built on legal certainty, social justice, and public trust," he concluded.