[Indonesia] Poor to get free land certificates

from The Jakarta Post

The government plans to process 200,000 land certificates for poor people next year free of charge, a minister says.

State Minister of National Development Planning Paskah Suzetta said the move would empower poor people and reduce the number of impoverished citizens.

"The poor can then use their land certificates as collateral to obtain bank credit for businesses," he said.

Paskah said processing land certificates was normally costly, meaning people in low income groups could often not afford to claim land that was rightfully theirs.

Many people who had lived for decades on state land would be eligible for the free certificates, the minister said.

He said the government was still deciding how the certificates would be distributed.