Clean river campaign is a total failure

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

It is called the office of the Clean Ciliwung Campaign - which is supposed to conduct activities to clean Ciliwung and other rivers in the city, but the two-story building is quiet.

Two homeless people were seen having a nap on the verandah of the two-story building when The Jakarta Post visited last week.

There was no one else but Husein, a cigarette vendor who was in charged of the office.

"I am the only one who is here while the officials rarely come here, not even once a week," Husein told the Post on Thursday.

The office is located in a strategic place on Jl. Penjernihan in Tanah Abang district, Central Jakarta. Just behind the building flows the Ciliwung River.

The building itself is in a poor condition. There are holes in the roof which allows the rain to pour in. The telephone does not work.

The office of the Clean Ciliwung Campaign was constructed in 1994 on land belonging to the City Cemetery Agency and opened by then city governor Surjadi Soedirdja in 1996, according to campaign coordinator Rahmat Salam.

He told the Post, who called him at his house, that the office was built with aid from Japan, but he could not remember the cost.

The Clean Ciliwung Campaign is part of the clean river campaign launched in 1989 by the then minister of environment Emil Salim.

At the city level, the program is under the coordination of the Environment Management Body (BPLHD) which involves several agencies like the Public Work Agency, the Park Agency and the Sanitation Agency.

Despite the campaign, Ciliwung and 12 other rivers flowing through the capital remain heavily polluted, not only with household garbage but also with industrial waste.

Rahmat said that Clean Ciliwung Campaign was supported by 64 organizations in the capital, including the University of Indonesia's (UI) environmental studies department and various non-governmental organizations.

Each of the 64 organizations used to voluntarily pay Rp 120,000 a year to cover the daily operational costs of the campaign, said Rahmat, who is from the UI's environmental studies department. Two years after the campaign was launched, however, they stopped giving the donation.

The city administration does not make any donations to the Clean Ciliwung Campaign, Rahmat said.

"As there is no fund, our joint campaign is stagnant now. But each organization does their activities individually," he said.

Fetri Mayandi of Jakarta-based Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), said on Saturday that almost all NGOs had withdrawn their support because they believed the campaign was not independent.

"NGOs withdrew support after Jakarta's deputy governor for development affairs was appointed in 1994 as the man responsible for the campaign," he said.

Fetri said in 2000 they held a meeting in an effort to restructure the Clean Ciliwung Campaign, but they failed to reach an agreement because UI refused to remove the deputy governor from the position.

"So far we have not seen any serious, concerted campaign under the deputy governor's control. There has been no significant action taken against major polluters of the city's rivers," he added.