What A Surprise!! Site Of Proposed New Jakarta Is Site Of 162 Different Mining, Timber Concessions

Activists say they’ve identified the business tycoons who control land in the area slated for Indonesia’s new capital and who could potentially benefit from the $33.5 billion mega project.

The site of the new capital on the island of Borneo is home to 162 existing concessions, most of them for coal mining, according to a report from a coalition of NGOs. This contradicts the government’s claim that the city will be built on vacant land, and raises the prospect of the concession holders exploiting the opportunity for profit, said Merah Johansyah from the Mining Advocacy Network (Jatam), one of the NGOs in the coalition. “If the government says it’s going to be the public who will benefit [from relocating the capital], that’s a big lie,” he said at the launch of the report in Jakarta. “The ones that will benefit are these companies.”

Among the companies with concessions at the site in East Kalimantan province, based on the coalition’s analysis of publicly available land and corporate registration records, are those affiliated to pulpwood and palm oil billionaire Sukanto Tanoto.

Among Tanoto’s many businesses is Asia Pacific Resources International Holdings (APRIL), Indonesia’s second-biggest pulp and paper company. An APRIL subsidiary, PT International Timber Corporation Indonesia Hutani Manunggal (ITCI HM), currently manages a pulpwood plantation at the site of the new capital that overlaps with a 5,644-hectare (13,950-acre) lot where the government plans to build its new office complex.

EDIT

https://news.mongabay.com/2020/01/indonesia-capital-relocation-borneo-kalimantan-tycoons-coal-mining-pulpwood/