Each regime that has ruled Indonesia has had its own style and development priorities. It should be admitted that, with all their shortcomings, the regimes have worked for the progress of the country. However, the fundamental issues of inequality and the low quality of human resources are not resolved using sustainable strategies.
Nawacita (the nine goal political agenda), as the campaign promise of President Joko Widodo, actually focuses on these two fundamental issues. However, its implementation has not been seen during the President’s two-year reign. In early 2017, during a Cabinet meeting, President Joko Widodo said the issue of equality would be the focus of government policy during 2017-2019.
Furthermore, the President has assigned Coordinating Economic Minister Darmin Nasution to translate this focus into concrete policies and programs. To find out more about the policies of the equality program, Kompas interviewed Darmin in his office on Friday for about 90 minutes. Here are excerpts from the interview, especially about the agrarian reform program.
What is the context of the equality policy?
The Gini ratio has slightly improved during the last one-and-a-half years. Despite a slight improvement, it was hard to achieve it. Poverty and the percentage of open unemployment rates have dropped. At the macro level, it means the economy is growing in a relatively good way. Nonetheless, there remains inequality in society. There is a tendency of worsening inequality in the world. The trend has occurred due to two large waves – technology that is developing so quickly, especially information and communications technology, and financial instruments that are also growing rapidly.
What is the concept of the equality policy?
To achieve equality, we need equal opportunities. It\'s important, but not sufficient. We need another thing, the capital, which refers to two things, the land and the capacity of human resources. Land, human resource capacity and opportunity are the three main pillars of the equality policy.
Could you elaborate about land as one of the pillars?
For land, the umbrella is agrarian reform. As much as 66 percent of Indonesia consists of ocean. This means that the land area is about one-third. According to the law, 67 percent of the land should consist of forest area. This means that the people can only use one-ninth of the total area.
If the forest area is not included, Indonesia is the second most populous country in the world after India. The density in India is 578 people per square kilometer, as compared to 426 people per square kilometer in Indonesia. In Java, the population density is 1,466 people per square kilometer. So, we have a serious problem about land. The myth that Indonesia is a large country is quite different from the reality.
How is the demographic condition?
The number of poor people is still high. In Java, for example, 54 percent of the population is poor. In regards to land ownership, 14.4 million farmer families in Indonesia only have an area of less than 0.5 hectares. In urban areas, about 13.5 million households do not have decent housing. In addition, 9.7 million families live on in plantations, outside oil palm plantations.
What is the agenda of agrarian reform?
There is a concept called Land as the Object of Agrarian Reform (TORA). It covers about 9.7 million hectares of land. However, most of it is already owned by the people so the amount is not enough. That is why we have a social forest. Currently, the data is being matched to the schemes in agrarian reform.
How does it relate with agriculture?
Approximately 54-56 percent of farmers only have a maximum land area of 0.5 hectares and this is not enough. Even if the economy progresses well, the farmers will remain poor because the economies of scale are not enough. Therefore, the farms will be directed into a cluster.
What about idle land?
The government is not going after land that is owned by developers and has been prepared in accordance with existing designs. What we’re talking about is land that was purchased 20 years ago but is still idle. This is what we will question. Actually, in terms of the rules, such land can be taken over by the government. However, we will find a way out. For the first step, we will use taxes.
