NEWS

The government is to issue a revision to a land-procurement regulation to expedite land acquisition, which has proved an obstacle to a number of infrastructure projects.

A presidential regulation (Perpres) on the implementation of the 2012 Law on Land Procurement for Public Infrastructure has been revised twice, but the intended faster land acquisition has yet to be seen.

For that reason, the government will issue a third revision with the aim of fixing previous problems by relaxing land acquisition procedures for existing projects, as well as easing financing procedures.

Firstly, all ongoing projects would benefit from the new land-acquisition law — which can force people to sell their property for public infrastructure projects, with fair compensation — said Luky Eko Wuryanto, an assistant to the coordinating economic minister.

Previously, infrastructure projects that had acquired three-quarters of the required land were subject to the old 1960 law, while those whose land-acquisition process was less than 75 percent complete had to start again, acquiring land using the new law. This complication drew bitter complaints from many investors.

The second major change to the law is that the government will allow the private sector to finance land acquisition to speed up the process, instead of waiting for state budget disbursement, which can be time-consuming, to help fund the projects. The government will then reimburse the spending if obliged to do so. “This is because the private sector has more flexibility to finance projects than the government, which has to wait for state budget disbursement,” Luky told reporters. – See more at: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/02/17/land-rule-revised-speed-projects.html#sthash.maXBGIAc.dpuf