City only able to provide flood plan, not prevention
City only able to provide flood plan, not prevention
Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
A lack of funds to develop flood control facilities for the
next five years has forced the city administration to prepare
only an emergency plan to help flood victims in Jakarta, an
official said.
The official said that the administration had allocated some
Rp 45 billion to help flood victims next year. The funds will be
used to establish public kitchens, temporary shelters, health
centers, medicines and evacuation equipment such as rubber rafts.
"For next year, we can only prepare an emergency plan for
flood victims as we have not been able to complete flood
projects," head of the city planning agency (Bapeda) Ritola
Sasmaya said on Monday.
According to Ritola, the Rp 45 billion was an emergency fund,
not included within the city budget. It will be used by the city
administration to resolve various social problems in the city.
The city administration was widely criticized over its poor
handling of flooding problems and victims during the massive
floods in January and February.
Ritola said that the development and improvement of flood
control facilities, which need some Rp 17 trillion, included the
dredging of the city's main rivers, repairing drainage systems
and the construction of new projects like the Eastern Flood
Canal, which would be completed within 10 years.
He added the city administration would contribute some Rp 1.7
trillion, or 10 percent of the total Rp 17 trillion, while the
remainder would be met by the central government.
"The Rp 17 trillion will not only be used for flood projects
in Jakarta but also for reforestation of environmentally damaged
land in the upper areas of the Puncak, Bogor, West Java," he
added.
Ritola said that land acquisition would be the most difficult
problem for the Eastern Flood Canal Project, as most landowners
demanded compensation higher than the taxed property prices
(NJOP).
Citing an example, Ritola said that last year, the public
works department could acquire only 40 percent of the land needed
for its projects.
He said that investment for the Eastern Flood Canal was about
Rp 3 trillion. He estimated that the flood canal would be
completed within five years, not 10, as estimated by many
officials before.
Meanwhile, head of the city public works agency IGKG Suena
said that his office would focus on the development of the 23-
kilometer East Flood Canal.
But he also added that the city administration was only able
to obtain funds of Rp 22 billion for land clearance and physical
development this year.
The funds, of course, would not be sufficient to meet city
Governor Sutiyoso's ambition to complete the clearance of 250
hectares of land this year, which requires about Rp 1.3 trillion.
"We hope that the land clearance issue can be resolved
immediately, otherwise we cannot make any progress," Suena told
The Jakarta Post on Monday.
The East Flood Canal is an important element of the
government's plan to build a semicircular canal in the northern
part of the city that will carry water from the capital's 13
rivers to the Java Sea off North Jakarta. The other element is
the 14-kilometer West Flood Canal, constructed in 1924 by the
Dutch colonial government.