Bantar Gebang dump may be reopened
Ahmad Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The Bekasi municipality has apparently softened its stance over the closure of the Bantar Gebang waste disposal site after the central government intervened on Wednesday in the dump site dispute, indicating that Jakarta may be able to resume dumping at the 104-hectare location.
Speaking to reporters after a meeting at the office of the Directorate General of Administration at the ministry of home affairs, the Bekasi Council Chairman Ismail Ibrahim, said he agreed with the central government's position.
"We also respect Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso for dismissing his sanitation agency chief and his willingness to settle the problem," Ismail of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) said.
However, he diplomatically said that it would not be decided any time soon whether the mayoralty would allow Jakarta to start dumping again since the closure decision was made in the council's plenary session.
Sutiyoso, who attended the meeting at the ministry of home affairs, noted that Bekasi had apparently given the green light on the possibility of reopening Bantar Gebang.
A technical team was reportedly working on some preparations to reopen the dump which handled up to 25,000 cubic meters of trash per day, until its closure on Monday. When trucks attempted to dump on Monday they were burned and harassed by locals.
Earlier on Wednesday, the governor officially replaced both the sanitation agency chief Saksono Soehodo as well as the deputy chief Soegiono.
Assistant City Secretary for Development Irzal Jamal was appointed as acting chief of the agency while former city-owned water firm PAM Jaya's president Rama Budi was appointed as the agency's deputy chief.
The appointment of Rama Budi might trigger controversy since he was dismissed from PAM Jaya in 1999 for mismanaging the firm which suffered massive losses.
The sanitation agency's poor management and unwillingness to use certain technologies available to it for trash disposal, is believed to have caused the massive environmental problem.
The dump site was originally intended to be a state-of-the-art landfill ten years ago, in which most waste would be converted into fertilizer using certain techniques and equipment, but the agency apparently ignored all the plans, never purchased the equipment with its allocated funds and simply piled the trash higher each day.