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Bakrie Group Denies Lapindo Pay Delay
Dessy Sagita | September 26, 2011

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didikarjadi
8:42am Sep 26, 2011

And this is the family that could hold the Presidency very soon. Bakrie could have total control of Indonesia. How frightening is that.

Mike.Jkt
7:54am Sep 26, 2011

Delay, delay, delay and eventually it will go away and the pesants can make and sell mud bricks

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The Bakrie Group denies there has been any delay in the compensation for land affected by the Lapindo mudflow.

“The full financial commitment will be completed as per the 2009 agreement, which is on or before December 2012,” said Christopher K. Fong, the international spokesman for the group.

Earlier this week, East Java Governor Soekarwo told Vice President Boediono during a visit to the area that Bakrie subsidiary Minarak Lapindo Jaya, the holding company for the gas drilling firm widely blamed for causing the mudflow, had only paid compensation for 72 percent of the inundated lands.

Soekarwo urged the company to pay out at least 80 percent by the end of the year.

But Fong said the Bakrie family had provided $650 million for the affected residents, and said the number equated to 13,000 families or 40,000 individuals.

The remaining financial support amounts to $130 million and is being disbursed according to schedule, Fong said.

He declined to respond to Boediono’s proposal that the impacted land be turned into a “nature recreation” area.

Boediono said he would require Soekarwo and the district heads to use the land rather than leave it abandoned.

But Fong said the area impacted by the mudflow required greater scientific research to verify that the mud was not toxic and to see if plant life could survive.

“We are not even sure if the technology exists to helps us answer these questions,” he said.

The mudflow, which began erupting in May 2006 after the blowout of one of Lapindo’s natural gas wells, has destroyed hundreds of homes, swamped 720 hectares of land and displaced thousands of people.

The Sidoarjo Mudflow Mitigation Agency (BPLS) said on Wednesday that the area was under continued threat, and raised the alert level for residents living nearby .

The agency said that the underground mud volcano had begun to erupt again after lying virtually dormant for years, threatening to overflow and hit residential areas, potentially cutting off roads and railways.

Authorities added another meter to the height of the dikes and reinforced them with rocks held together by chicken wire. But rain could worsen the surging mudflow and cause the dikes to weaken.