City Hall caught making false statement
Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The city administration has been caught making a false statement about constructing garbage treatment facilities in three places with a combined capacity to process 4,000 tons of garbage per day in anticipation of the closure of the Bantar Gebang dump in Bekasi mayoralty.
City spokesman Ahyat M. Awe said last week that construction of garbage treatment facilities in Jonggol, Bogor; Duri Kosambi, West Jakarta; and Cilincing, East Jakarta, were about 80 percent complete.
Ahyat said his statement was based on a report by the head of the City Sanitation Agency, Salamat Limbong, to Governor Sutiyoso about the readiness of his agency to replace Bantar Gebang dump.
But when The Jakarta Post visited two of the three places -- Duri Kosambi and Cilincing -- on Wednesday, there appeared to be no construction being done.
In Duri Kosambi, the location is a field planted with various vegetables, such as spinach and kangkung (water spinach).
Abdul Hamid, a staff member at the sanitation agency who is in charge of the human waste treatment facility in Duri Kosambi, said that a six-hectare plot of land, located near the human waste management center, had been allocated for a garbage management facility.
"Yes, this is the place for garbage management, but I do not know when the construction of the facility will begin," Hamid told the Post.
According to Ahyat, the garbage treatment facility in Duri Kosambi, which will convert garbage into bio-fertilizer, is expected to process about 1,000 tons of garbage per day.
Similar circumstances were apparent at the allocated dump site on Jl. Cakung Cilincing which, according to Ahyat, will process 1,000 tons of garbage per day. The site only housed the garbage transfer station managed by PT Wira Gulfindo.
About 300 trucks carry waste from Cilincing to Bantar Gebang every day.
A worker at the transfer station said he knew nothing about the plan to construct a garbage treatment facility, which Ahyat said would use "press ball" technology.
"As far as I know, the only garbage facility being developed is in Jonggol. I know nothing about construction plans for here," said the worker.
Ahyat said the capacity of the Jonggol facility would be around 2,000 tons per day.
Jakarta residents produce some 6,000 tons of garbage per day, which is dumped at the 104-hectare Bantar Gebang dump site, to which the Jakarta city administration has contractual rights.
Late on Wednesday, Ahyat apologized for his erroneous statement, saying that Salamat Limbong had conceded that his report was wrong. Ahyat said Limbong had corrected his statement, saying that the only garbage treatment facility being constructed was at the Jonggol site.
Limbong was not available for comment on Wednesday.
Sutiyoso has stressed that he has ordered the closure of Bantar Gebang dump, saying the city will be able to manage the garbage produced by city residents. He also said that the Bekasi mayoralty would not be allowed to dump garbage at the new sites.
In December 2001, Bekasi closed the Bandar Gebang dump for a week due to environmental damage. The closure caused a garbage crisis in the city, with garbage piling up on many streets. The dump was reopened after talks between the Jakarta administration and the Bekasi administration and the intervention of President Megawati Soekarnoputri.