Singapore Warned 7 Firms Over Fires; Lutfi Demands Action
Muhammad Lutfi says four of seven firms warned over Indonesian fires link to Singapore-listed groups, and urges Singapore to pursue meaningful follow-up.
JAKARTA — Singapore’s warning letters to seven companies linked to forest and land fires in Indonesia have raised questions about corporate accountability across borders, after former Indonesian trade minister Muhammad Lutfi said four of the firms were connected to business groups listed in Singapore. He urged the Singapore government to move beyond letters as smoke from fires in parts of Sumatra and Kalimantan was reported to have spread to Singapore and Malaysia.
Lutfi’s criticism focuses on a gap between where companies operate and where their wider corporate groups are based or listed. He said warnings directed at operating companies would not demonstrate serious action if the groups behind them were left out of the discussion.
Lutfi questions Singapore’s warning letters
In a post on his personal Instagram account, Lutfi suggested the letters risked serving as a political response to public concern in Singapore rather than a measure with a direct effect on the companies. He made the remarks in response to an announcement by Minister Grace Fu about seven companies linked to the fires.
“The Singapore government announced that it sent warning letters to seven companies in Indonesia because of the fires. Let me say, don’t write warning letters just to make your constituents and voters happy,” Lutfi said, according to the report, which cited his post on Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026.
Lutfi cited an October 2026 Greenpeace report for the claim that four of the seven companies had links to business groups listed on the Singapore Exchange, or SGX. The available material does not identify all seven recipients or detail the nature of each company’s relationship with the listed groups.
He also named First Resources and Bumitama Agri among major entities with ties to Singapore, saying the companies he highlighted had a combined value of 10 billion Singapore dollars, or about 141 trillion rupiah. The source material does not provide further details on how that combined figure was calculated.
Corporate links at the center of the dispute
“Four of the seven companies you named are suppliers to conglomerate groups with massive corporate ownership and are listed directly there, in Singapore,” Lutfi said.
The distinction matters because the location of plantations or production facilities may differ from the location of a parent company or other corporate functions. Lutfi argued that Singapore should take those links into account when responding to fires whose smoke has crossed national borders.
For communities exposed to haze, the debate over corporate structures has immediate consequences. Fires take place where the land and facilities are located, while smoke can travel beyond national boundaries; the effects reach people in affected areas as well as neighboring countries responding to the haze.
The source material does not say what further steps Singapore plans to take after sending the letters. Lutfi’s demand is that the government address the broader corporate relationships behind the companies it has warned, rather than treating the letters themselves as a sufficient response.
