REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Acting Minister for Energy and Mineral Resources, Luhut Binsar Panjaitan, has said the government will continue to work to end the malpractice of illegal levies.

The minister's assurance followed a search-and-nab operation at the Ministry of Transportation to red-handedly catch some officials for the alleged corruption. "Illegal levies need to be eradicated and efforts in this regard should be mounted in an optimal and harsher fashion," Luhut Binsar Panjaitan noted after attending the 12th Heads of Asian Coast Guard Agency Meeting here on Wednesday.

As part of the efforts to check illegal levies, the Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs informed that the government would carry out all transactions electronically. "This will help reduce such instances of people being charged illegal levies," the minister remarked.

The government has already cut the number of permits in the energy sector, such as coal, oil and natural gas. "We have reduced the number of permits from the 104 required previously to just six," the minister stated.

Speaking about the search and arrest operation at the Ministry of Transportation, the minister informed that the police have been ordered to monitor the activities of those involved in allegedly collecting of illegal levies.

Bambang Haryo Soekartono, a member of the House of Representatives' Commission VI, earlier praised the government's efforts to eliminate illegal levies. "We should laud the president's efforts to eradicate illegal levies. The president inspected the search operation at the Ministry of Transportation's premises. All sectors need to be cleansed of such malpractices," Bambang Haryo Soekartono observed here on Wednesday.

Bambang underscored that the process of certification of vessels should be simplified to prevent such malpractices.

"Over a long period, overlapping regulations came into effect in sea transportation. As a result, the economic costs have increased," he underlined.

The practice of illegal levies not only marked the maritime transport sector but was also reported in land transportation. "The officers of the ministry should be strictly supervised by the inspector general," he suggested.

If the inspector general found any evidence of fraud, he noted, such evidence should be submitted to the police.

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