Directorate General of Sea Transportation (Indonesia), Patimban Port Grievance Redress
Patimban Port is a new international seaport and access road in Subang Regency, West Java. The executing agency is the Directorate General of Sea Transportation (DGST) of the Ministry of Transportation, with loans from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA, 2022). JICA rates the project Category A. It required land blocks of 356.23 and 15.79 hectares and the involuntary resettlement of 75 and 21 households, and port construction was expected to affect local fishing (JICA, 2022). The Land Acquisition and Resettlement Action Plan includes a chapter on grievance redress (DGST, 2017).
Approach
Grievance Redress Center. The project set up a Grievance Redress Center and Fast Response Team to receive and respond to public unrest related to the port (DGST, n.d.a).
Legal route for compensation disputes. Under the resettlement plan, people who dispute compensation can object to the district court within 14 working days. The court must decide within 30 business days, and an appeal to the Supreme Court can be lodged within 14 working days (DGST, 2017).
Quarterly public reporting. DGST prepares quarterly environmental and social progress reports that include records of grievances. JICA publishes these reports online (DGST, n.d.b; JICA, n.d.).
Outreach to fishers. The project held sessions with the fishing community on reclamation and offshore works and trained 176 people in four batches to assemble rampus (gill) nets (DGST, n.d.a).
Results
By December 2019 the contractor had repaired 58 of 264 houses in three villages that were damaged by pile works for the access road (DGST, n.d.a). In October to December 2021 no official grievances were raised by local fishers through the mechanism. In the same period some respondents informally asked for compensation for a fall in fish catch (DGST, n.d.b).
Transferability
DMC ports building new terminals can set up a grievance office and rapid response team before construction starts.
Setting out legal time limits for compensation disputes in the resettlement plan makes the process predictable.
Publishing grievance records in regular monitoring reports lets lenders and communities check follow up.
The Patimban reports also show that concerns may be raised informally and not through the formal channel, so ports should check survey findings and informal feedback as well as the grievance log.
Sources
All information used for this case study was based on publicly available resources.
- JICA. 2022. Ex-Ante Evaluation: Patimban Port Development Project (II). Japan International Cooperation Agency. (opens in new tab)
- Directorate General of Sea Transportation (DGST), Ministry of Transportation. 2017. Land Acquisition and Resettlement Action Plan (LARAP), Patimban Port, Subang Regency. Updated July 2017. Published by JICA. (opens in new tab)
- DGST. n.d.a. Environmental and Social Consideration Quarterly Progress Report, October to December 2019. Patimban Port Development Project. Published by JICA. (opens in new tab)
- DGST. n.d.b. Environmental and Social Consideration Quarterly Progress Report No. 12, October to December 2021. Patimban Port Development Project. Published by JICA. (opens in new tab)
- JICA. n.d. Patimban Port Development Project: environmental and social considerations monitoring results. Japan International Cooperation Agency. (opens in new tab)