In response to the online listing of four islands in Riau Island’s Anambas district -- Ritan, Tokongsendok, Nakok, and Mala -- for sale, Agrarian Affairs and Spatial Planning Minister Nusron Wahid stressed that remote islands must not be sold to foreign entities.
Nor should any ownership certificate (SHM) or building permit use (SHGB) be granted for these islands, he added here on Tuesday.
“Anyone selling (islands) online must be questioned. Why? They don’t own them, why are they selling (the islands)?” he said.
His administration has been investigating websites showing the listing, and some of them have been taken down. Wahid also urged the regional government to issue land use rights for the islands.
This would ensure that the islands, which have yet to gain legal status, are not misused. It would also help prevent any illegal sale of the islands, he said.
Such practices compromise state sovereignty and pose a risk of land misuse by irresponsible people. He said he expects only local people to have ownership over these islands.
On a different occasion, Wahid said he suspected that the sale listing was motivated by geopolitical interests, and not a prank. This is because the four islands border strategic locations such as the South China Sea and Australia, he explained.
During a meeting with the House of Representatives on Tuesday, he said that in the Anambas regional regulations, all four islands are listed as tourism zones.
The Maritime Affairs and Fishery Ministry has asked the Communication and Digital Affairs Ministry to take down sites advertising the sale of the four islands.
“In response to those sites selling (the islands), we have (communicated) with the Communication and Digital Ministry to warn the site owners about the wrongdoing,” the ministry’s director general for marine spatial management, Koswara, said on June 23, 2025.
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Translator: Mecca Yumna Ning Prisie
Editor: Primayanti
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