Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The government is soon to form an Infrastructure Fund tasked with collecting long-term funds from donor countries and other sources to speed up infrastructure development, a top public works official said.<\/p>\n
\"The Fund`s establishment has been awaited for a long time because we badly need long-term financing sources for infrastructure development,\" Deputy Public Works Minister Hermanto Dardak said here on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The contributions to the Fund could come from Indonesia itself, the World Bank, the ADB or other institutions prepared to make long-term investments in infrastructure development in Indonesia, he said.<\/p>\n
In fact, pension or insurance funds could also put their money in the Infrastructure Fund which was now in a preparatory stage.<\/p>\n
The fund`s formation would enable the government to be more involved in providing a number of \"missing links\" in existing infrastrcture projects such as the Trans-Java turnpike and other toll road systems, he said.<\/p>\n
The Fund would in effect be something like a holding company among PT SMI, the World Bank and ADB and operate under its own management.<\/p>\n
Hermanto said the Public Works Department had so far had access only to short-term financing sources to carry out road construction projects which actually need long-term financing.<\/p>\n
As a result, the projects were often subject to interruptions or delays. \"With the present government budgets, we can only tackle certain missing links in exissting toll roads such as the Solo-Kertosono turnpike. \"We cannot undertake whole projects,\" he added.<\/p>\n
The Trans-Java toll-road project actually needs a huge budget to clear 4,500 hectares of land but because of budget constraints the government had to implement the project piecemeal or according to a priority system, Hermanto said.<\/p>\n
This was why, after more than five years of land-clearing efforts, only 27 percent of the land needed for the Trans-Java toll had now actually been cleared. (*)<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/govt-to-form-infrastructure-fund-soon-1261701157", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }