Meikarta project abides by spatial regulation: Minister

PROPERTY MARKET - JAKARTA. Agrarian and Spatial Planning Minister Sofyan Djalil has assured that the Meikarta property project in Bekasi, West Java, was developed in accordance with the spatial planning regulation, particularly the 84-hectare land that had already been acquired by the developer.

“From our side, there is no problem,” said Sofyan in Jakarta on Friday after the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) named Lippo Group executive Billy Sindoro, along with two Lippo Group consultants – Taryudi and Fitra Djaja Purnama – and Lippo employee Henry Jasmen, as suspects.

The KPK also named Bekasi Regent Neneng Hasanah Yasin and other Bekasi administration officials as suspects for allegedly accepting bribes from those businesspeople in a case revolving around the issuance of permits for the Meikarta project.

The KPK accused the developer of the project of promising bribe money amounting to Rp 13 billion (US$855,471) to a number of Bekasi administration officials.

Sofyan said the bribery case was allowed to occur because the licensing process was carried out not with a transparent mechanism.

Therefore, he called on other developers to arrange the licensing document through the Online Single Submission (OSS), which was being developed by the central government.

“All licensing processes were implemented in the regional administrations. We [in the ministry] only supervise its spatial plan. Therefore, we need the OSS system so that there would be no back door deals,” he added.

Meikarta, developed by PT Mahkota Sentosa Utama (MSU), a subsidiary of PT Lippo Cikarang, part of the Lippo Group, is the group’s flagship project.