Sumatra Floods Harden Prabowo’s Stance: State Must Not Bow to Corporate Interests

JAKARTA, Investortrust.id — Indonesia’s devastating floods in Sumatra have pushed President Prabowo Subianto to deliver one of his most explicit warnings yet to business and state officials alike: the government will no longer tolerate corporate or elite interests undermining environmental protection and national welfare.

Speaking during a cabinet plenary meeting at the State Palace on Monday, Prabowo said the floods and landslides in Aceh, North Sumatra and West Sumatra offered “hard lessons” about the consequences of weak control over natural resources.

“The lesson we must take from all of this is that we really need to manage our resources properly,” Prabowo told ministers. “So much of our wealth has been leaking away. Little by little, we are closing those leaks.”

Prabowo directly linked the severity of the disaster to illegal logging, unlicensed mining and smuggling—practices he said have drained the economy while degrading forests and watersheds that once absorbed extreme rainfall.

“These are not abstract losses,” he said. “They damage the environment, they damage the economy, and in the end they hurt ordinary people.”

The president said he had ordered the Indonesian National Armed Forces (TNI) and the National Police to intensify enforcement against illegal activity, but acknowledged resistance from within the system itself. He cited long-running tin smuggling in Bangka as an example and said reports he received were troubling.

“I received reports from law-enforcement agencies. The TNI itself reported that some of its personnel were involved. I also received reports that members of the police were involved, along with officials from other institutions,” Prabowo said.

He instructed Armed Forces Commander Gen. Agus Subiyanto and National Police Chief Gen. Listyo Sigit Prabowo to act decisively.

“This must be confronted seriously,” he said. “Anyone protecting smuggling or illegal activity must be dealt with firmly.”

Prabowo framed the crackdown as part of a broader reassertion of state authority under Article 33 of Indonesia’s 1945 Constitution, which mandates that natural resources be controlled by the state for the greatest benefit of the people.

“There must not be any corporation that defeats the state,” Prabowo said. “We need corporations, we need private enterprise—but they must not control the state or overpower it.”

He said the government has already reclaimed millions of hectares of misused land concessions and imposed a de facto freeze on new forestry and mining permits while a comprehensive evaluation is under way.

“We have taken back four million hectares. We have revoked these concessions,” Prabowo said. “This year, not a single permit has been issued or extended.”

Those who exploit concessions for private gain while shifting profits abroad, he added, are directly undermining national interests.

“If they hold concessions, abuse them, take the profits and move the money overseas, that clearly harms Indonesia and harms the people,” Prabowo said.

The president’s forceful remarks came as government data illustrated the scale of destruction. A disaster dashboard updated Tuesday, Dec. 16, showed flooding and landslides affecting 52 regencies and cities across the three provinces, with 1,030 deaths, 205 people missing and around 7,000 injured. Housing damage was extensive, with 186,488 homes reported damaged, alongside hundreds of destroyed schools, health facilities, offices, houses of worship and more than 140 damaged bridges.

At the same cabinet meeting, Housing and Settlement Minister Maruarar Sirait presented a separate assessment with a slightly lower—but still staggering—housing toll. As of Sunday afternoon, Dec. 14, he said 139,485 homes had suffered damage ranging from light to swept away.

“So in total, Mr President, from light damage to severe damage and homes that were washed away, the number reaches 139,485 units,” Maruarar said.

Aceh accounted for the largest share, with 100,569 affected homes, followed by North Sumatra with 29,766 and West Sumatra with 9,150. Maruarar also said the government had secured 2,600 permanent housing units financed outside the state budget and ready for occupancy this week.

“Two thousand units were already ready, then last night another 500 were added, and this morning 100 more,” he said. “So we now have 2,600 permanent homes ready to be occupied.”

Meanwhile, the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) said it is preparing around 750 temporary housing units in six districts and cities in West Sumatra as part of the post-disaster recovery phase. Abdul Muhari, BNPB’s head of data and information, said the construction would proceed in stages as land and administrative requirements are completed.

“This is part of our post-disaster response to ensure affected residents have safe and decent temporary housing,” Abdul said.

Taken together, the floods have become more than a humanitarian emergency. They are now a political and economic inflection point—testing the government’s ability to coordinate reconstruction, reconcile overlapping damage assessments, and deliver on Prabowo’s pledge that the state, not narrow interests, will determine how Indonesia’s natural wealth is managed.

“There must not be a handful of people enjoying Indonesia’s wealth,” Prabowo warned ministers. “Too many of our people are still struggling.”