Universities now have the opportunity to manage mining operations, following religious organizations that were previously granted permission to do so. This proposal emerged during the revision of the Mineral and Coal Mining Law (Minerba Law), which is currently under discussion in the House of Representatives (DPR).
The DPR’s Legislative Body has included a proposal to grant universities and micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) licenses to manage mines.
The revision of Minerba Law has been approved as an initiative by the DPR.
Professor of Management and Public Policy at the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences (Fisipol UGM), Gabriel Lele, argued that universities should not seek mining business licenses.
While universities with mining departments could use mining fields as laboratories to apply knowledge and new technologies, he believes this initiative represents a new form of government corporatism toward universities.
“This granting of mining licenses is a form of corporatization or, more precisely, a new form of corporatism within the campus environment,” he stated on Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025.
Professor Lele further explained that corporatism is a state strategy to co-opt groups outside the government, including civil society, by offering privileges—on the condition that critical voices are silenced.
“I see this as a subtle form of silencing critical voices from universities,” he said.
For him, universities have always been asked for input regarding policy formulation or legal revisions.
However, he argues that granting mining licenses to universities will result in greater negative impacts such as corruption or, at the very least, a moral hazard.
If universities are given the right to enter the mining business, the logic used will no longer be purely academic. They will have to adopt a business logic for calculating profits and losses.
“Once again, business logic will be applied,” he explained.
Regardless of the pros and cons of universities managing mines, he believes universities need to unite to provide unified input to the government and the DPR.
“If they accept, for example, and agree to the offer, what considerations should be taken into account? If they reject it, what are the pros and cons? Risk identification and management must be conducted, as it is a basic principle of any policy. After all, no policy is free of risk,” he concluded.
Author: Kezia Dwina Nathania
Editor: Gusti Grehenson
Post-editor: Lintang
Photo: Freepik