‘On moral high ground’: Singapore prepared to prosecute Indonesian firms under haze law

Singapore is prepared to prosecute any Indonesian companies found responsible for the fires that produced hazardous ash clouds last year, a minister said, standing his ground even as recent efforts to take firms to account drew ire from the country’s largest Southeast Asian neighbour.

Under the Transboundary Haze Pollution Act of 2014, Singapore has ordered six suppliers of Indonesia’s Asia Pulp and Paper Group to provide information on steps they are taking to prevent fires on their land, Environment and Water Resources Minister Masagos Zulkifli said in an interview on June 7. APP, one of the world’s largest paper producers, didn’t reply to emailed requests for comment, while its parent company didn’t reply to calls for comment.

“We are standing on high moral ground,“ said Masagos. ”We have the support of the international community. We are not doing anything criminal nor wrong. We are just asking for the companies and the directors to own up and be accountable for what they’ve done.”

The six companies have been told that Singapore has the right to bring their directors to court, and firms involved in haze-producing fires face fines of up to S$100,000 (HK$570,700) a day for every day of fire, the minister said.

Singapore, often among the worst hit by haze from forest fires that periodically envelope swathes of Southeast Asia for weeks at a time, enacted the 2014 law to address the pollution as Indonesia struggles to prevent the flares. Caused mainly by palm oil planters and pulp and paper companies using fire to clear peat swamp land in South Sumatra and Kalimantan, the haze has become a public health issue in Singapore, pushing the city-state’s Pollutant Standards Index to dangerously high levels at times.