Meeting the Promise of Agrarian Reform

KOMPAS/ALIF ICHWAN

Residents hold up their land certificates in Jakarta on Sunday (20/8). The government has given 7,486 land certificates to residents of Jabodetabek (Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi).

Even though the government has had the Agrarian National Operation Project since 1981, people are still facing difficulties processing the certification of their land.

No less than President Joko Widodo himself admitted to having difficulties processing the land certification for public parks when he was Jakarta governor.

The symbolic distribution of land certificates throughout Greater Jakarta (covering Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi) by the President in Jakarta on Sunday (20/8), becomes the initial step for something bigger: realizing agrarian reform.

Land certification gives legal certainty and ownership, which subsequently give the people capital to raise the level of their welfare.

Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto used the term "dead capital" to describe land belonging to the people, especially the poor, as the land has no meaning due to the absence of legal certainty and a guarantee of their ownership.

By providing legal certainty through the land certification, owners of the properties can connect with financial institutions for loans and increase their income.

We want the good will of the government to realize the welfare of the people, lower the level of inequality and sustainably reduce the number of poor. Therefore, land certification alone is not enough. There is still one more step that must be carried out, namely developing an existing embryo in the form of spatial plans.

The government also needs to determine certainty in land use; paddy fields must remain paddy fields and residential areas should not be changed into commercial quarters, malls or hotels on the grounds that city development can be compensated by the developers. Land owners, especially for agriculture, need to get economic incentives.

Land certification constitutes one of the ways for agrarian reform promised by the government. The other ways include land redistribution. This year, the government targets to issue 5 million land certificates, next year 7 million and 9 million in 2019. Meanwhile, the land to be redistributed reaches 4.5 million hectares.

The President\'s step proves the government’s dedication to implementing Law No. 5 of 1960 on Agrarian and Decree of the People\'s Consultative Assembly of the Republic of Indonesia No. IX/MPR/2001, something that was previously slow to realize despite the availability of the Agrarian National Operation Project (Prona).

However, we should not be complacent, as if we have vast swaths of land. Our land area amounts to 192 million ha and about 36 million ha are arable. Therefore, we must be careful in utilizing them.

What we can\'t forget is the message of Article 6 of the Agrarian Law, namely that land has a social function, meaning that land cannot be freely bought and sold, and nor are they tax objects.