City unprepared for imminent floods

City unprepared for imminent floods

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

With the coming of the rainy season, huge amounts of garbage are
still clogging many parts of major rivers in the city. Meanwhile,
many roads have been inundated, indicating inadequate drainage.

Despite this, city officials claimed on Tuesday that they had
done their best to anticipate this rainy season, which according
to the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency may be marked by
particularly heavy rainfalls.

"We held a meeting of relevant agencies days before the Idul
Fitri break. All the agencies expressed their readiness in
anticipating the floods," said head of the warnings division at
the City Public Order Agency, Didiet Soehandono.

The agency is the head of the Coordination Board for City
Disaster Mitigation, which is also in charge of controlling
annual floods.

According to Didiet, the large amounts of garbage in several
rivers, which had not yet been removed, was the responsibility of
the City Public Works Agency who are charged with guaranteeing
the smooth flow of water from upstream areas.

Meanwhile, the head of water resources division at the Public
Works Agency, I Nyoman Laba, said that his office could not
remove all the garbage in the rivers due to limited funds
allocated for such activities.

Jakarta has 13 major rivers.

He said that the Rp 18 billion allocated for cleaning was
inadequate. His office needed some Rp 40 billion to remove all
garbage from the rivers.

Meanwhile, deputy chairman of the City Council's Commission D
on development affairs, Muhayar, said the Public Works Agency had
not worked optimally because up to October, it could only spend
56 percent of the Rp 400 billion (US$44.44 million) allocated for
the improvement of flood control facilities.

"The Public Works Agency should have completed all projects
relating to flood control in October," he said.

He urged the agency to complete all the projects by the end of
December, as it is estimated that the rainy season will peak in
January.

Projects relating to flood control include river dredging,
maintenance of small drainage systems in residential areas and
along roads, garbage removal from rivers, and water pump
maintenance.