City earmarks a pittance for urban renewal
Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Despite public complaints over the poor condition of urban infrastructure -- roads, parks, pavements, waste treatment and transportation systems -- the city administration has disbursed only a small fraction of the infrastructure funds for 2005.
By the end of the first semester of the 2005 fiscal year, agencies tasked with maintaining or building infrastructure in the capital had used only 8.17 percent or Rp 304 billion (US$30.40 million) of the total allocation of Rp 3.72 trillion for infrastructure projects across the capital.
"The large amount of development funds loses its relevance if the city administration uses only a meager part of the allocated funds," spokesman of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) faction in the City Council Richard Gustaf Edwin Tulis said on Thursday.
Richard delivered the PDI-P faction's comment on the draft revision of the city's 2005 budget at a City Council plenary session on Thursday.
In the draft submitted by Governor Sutiyoso last week, the administration sought the City Council's approval to raise the city budget by Rp 248.5 billion. The city budget for 2005 stood at Rp 14.01 trillion.
Meanwhile, budgetary spending in the first six months of 2005 reached some Rp 3.5 trillion or about 25.25 percent of the total budget.
Limited progress was observed in projects including the development of busway corridors II and III from the Pulogadung bus terminal in East Jakarta to the Kalideres bus terminal in West Jakarta, the improvement of city drainage and waste treatment systems and land acquisition for low-cost apartments.
Spokesman for the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) faction Nurmansyah Lubis said infrastructure had not been improved to the extent that was budgeted for due to poor planning and supervision.
Nurmansyah said all delayed projects involved third parties who had become the partners of the city administration.
"We demand that Governor Sutiyoso explains the reason why only a small fraction of the allocated funds has been disbursed," said Nurmansyah.
Considering the limited fund disbursement for infrastructure, Richard questioned the governor's proposal to seek Rp 50.53 billion in additional funds for several waste management projects, including land acquisition in Marunda, North Jakarta.
He expressed doubt that the city administration would be able to spend the money within three and a half months.
Several officials in the city administration said that one of the main reasons why not much money had been put into fixing up infrastructure was that many officials were worried about being implicated in corruption cases.
"Many officials refuse to become project leaders now. They said they would be happy if there were no development projects throughout the year," said a high-ranking official in City Hall, who was speaking on the condition of anonymity.