Luhut is furious at accusing Tom Lembong and Muhaimin of lying

REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA — Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment, Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, was furious with the words of former head of the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) Thomas Trikasih Lembong and vice presidential candidate number 1, Abdul Muhaimin Iskandar. He also straightened out Tom Lembong and Muhaimin’s statements regarding the fourth vice presidential debate.

“When you were BKPM, what did you try to do? You right assigned for OSS. I remember very well that you confided in me, but that right “until you leave the cabinet it is never finished,” said Luhut in a statement on social media quoted Republika.co.id in Jakarta, Thursday (25/1/2024).

After Tom Lembong was no longer the head of BKPM, Luhut admitted that he completed the licensing via the Online Single Submission (OSS) system himself. He also criticized Tom Lembong’s assessment that nickel prices had fallen due to the Indonesian government’s downstream policy.

He also invited the public to look at nickel prices over the last 10 years. According to Luhut, commodity price cycles inevitably rise and fall. He also doesn’t understand why Tom Lembong said that world nickel prices have dropped due to mining in Indonesia.

“Whether it’s coal, nickel, tin or gold. Whatever. But if we look at the world price of nickel, which is around 15 thousand US dollars. Even in the 2014-2019 period, the downstreaming period we started doing, the average price of nickel was “only 12 thousand US dollars,” said Luhut.

He also attacked Tom Lembong for giving inappropriate advice to vice presidential candidate Muhaimin. “How do you give false advice to a potential leader that you support? I was sad to see you there. This means that your intellect makes me doubt it,” said Luhut.

Luhut also laughed when responding to Cak Imin regarding reckless nickel downstreaming. He also wanted to invite Cak Imin to see the nickel mining location directly. “Inviting to visit Weda Bay, to Morowali to see for yourself. Seeing is believing, that’s it. Instead of lying to the public,” said the former coordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs.

According to Luhut, Cak Imin’s character, who lies about mining and downstreaming, is not a good character. “To achieve your position, you lied to the public by providing information like that,” said Luhut.

He also shared data on Sulawesi, the poverty rate in 2015 was 14.7 percent. In 2023, when mining takes place, poverty will fall to 12.4 percent. According to Luhut, this happened because there was economic growth.

“In Morowali, in 2015 there was 15.8 percent poverty and in 2023 we will see 12.3 percent (level) of poverty. There have also been quite improvements there,” said Luhut.

Reckless