August 23, 2026 | 06:10 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Indonesia's Presidential Palace denies the report that President Prabowo Subianto has appointed the South Kalimantan business mogul, Andi Syamsuddin Arsyad, familiarly known as Haji Isam, as the Kalimantan wildfire management coordinator. This was previously reported by several media outlets and went viral on social media.
"That's not true," said Minister of State Secretary Prasetyo Hadi in Senayan, Jakarta, on Sunday, August 23, 2026.
Haji Isam currently serves as the Presidential Special Envoy for Energy, Food, and Infrastructure.
According to Prasetyo, not all popular narratives on social media are necessarily true. He warned that problems would arise if all viral issues were believed.
Nevertheless, the Gerindra Party politician admitted that the government has made an all-hands-on-deck request to tackle the issue of forest fires. "But to become a coordinator, no, he's not authorized," he said.
The central government has tapped a number of minister-level state officials as the coordinators for disaster management. According to him, the ministers share responsibilities in coordinating disaster management in various regions, including the forest fires in Kalimantan and earthquakes in East Nusa Tenggara.
But the government has no current plan to form a wildfire task force, as cross-sector coordination is deemed sufficient.
The narrative that President Prabowo appointed Haji Isam as the coordinator for wildfire handling in Kalimantan previously circulated on social media. It was reported that the appointment was conveyed by the Minister of Defense through a phone call on Saturday, August 22, 2026, around 11:00 a.m. WITA (Central Indonesia Time).
Read: Indonesia Fast-Tracks Foreign Aircraft Use to Combat Forest Fires
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