Jakarta tycoon in mudslide windfall - Indonesia/Environment
Stephen Fitzpatrick; 1/3/08
Usually if enough mud is thrown, some of it sticks, but the normal rules don’t apply for Indonesia’s slippery Co-ordinating Minister for Social Welfare, Aburizal Bakrie. The minister’s family company, Bakrie Group, this week received a substantial windfall in the form of a government decision to spend millions of dollars in state funds compensating selected victims of East Java’s “mud volcano”‘ explosion. The farcical handling of the May 2006 gas well blowout, which has buried 11 towns in thick ooze, displaced at least 16,000 people and closed numerous businesses and schools, is continuing, and well operator Lapindo Brantas - a Bakrie subsidiary - is breathing a corporate sigh of relief at the latest developments. Indonesia’s richest man, with a net worth of $US5.4billion ($5.7 billion) according to Forbes magazine, can effectively wash his hands of the affair after the national parliament declared it a “natural disaster” and therefore not his problem.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23298078-25837,00.html