Jakarta, MINE – The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) is reviewing the transfer of authority to grant quartz sand/silica mining permits to the central government. This step was taken following the discovery of tin content in the quartz sand mining process by the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources, Bahlil Lahadalia.
General Chair of the Indonesian Silica Mining and Industry Association, Raden Sukhyar, explained that quartz/silica sand is included in non-metallic mining business permits (IUP). Therefore, miners are not allowed to take tin, which is a metal, in quartz sand mining activities.
“According to the provisions of the law, if the IUP is non-metallic, if there is metal that you want to take, you cannot take it, because the principle is different, one metal and one non-metal,” said Raden Sukhyar when contacted by TAMBANG, quoted Monday (1/12).
However, according to the former Director General of Mineral and Coal, to mine tin, miners must have a metal mineral mining permit. Because this permit is a non-people’s IUP, the mechanism is carried out through auction.
“The problem is, in practice, the IUP for quartz sand and tin are in the same location, so the goods are one unit. Under conditions like this, the IUP auction for quartz sand is difficult to carry out, because the location and commodity are integrated with tin,” he explained.
Responding to Minister Bahlil’s findings, Raden Sukhyar suggested that the government not rush to withdraw permits from the center, but instead focus on repairing the legal vacuum that occurs when non-metallic sand miners find additional minerals in the form of metals such as tin.
“In that case, don’t be in a hurry, deal with these problems first, previously there was an IUP for sand and metal. If the IUP is a tin IUP, taking sand (quartz) is not a problem, because the sand is an application to the Governor,” he explained.
Minister Bahlil’s findings regarding alleged mining practices not in accordance with permits by a number of quartz sand miners, including the presence of tin mixed in the commodity, were reported to President Prabowo Subianto at a Limited Meeting (Ratas) in Hambalang, Bogor, on Sunday (23/11).
“The miner holds a permit for quartz sand but it contains tin, so yesterday the meeting also decided that permits for quartz sand and silica which were originally in the regions were withdrawn to the center so that governance could be better regulated,” said Bahlil.
Source: www.tambang.co.id
