Councilors blast flood prevention program

JAKARTA (JP): City councilors condemned on Thursday the city's poor flood prevention program following the deaths of two women who were swept away by the flood on Wednesday.

Council members for Commission D for development affairs F.X. Marsiadi and Mardjuan Bakri said the monitoring systems were particularly weak.

"The early warning system did not perform well in any of the city's flood prone areas," said Marsiadi of the Indonesian Military (TNI) faction.

"The city public works agency only concentrates on certain areas which are prone to annual floods like Manggarai district, South Jakarta, the Cipinang river in East Jakarta and the Danau Sunter area in North Jakarta."

He questioned the city public works agency's earlier statement about readiness in handling city floods. The statement was issued during a meeting of the public works agency with Commission D last November.

"That's the reason why the agency should make proper preparations for all flood-prone areas in the city," he said.

Marsiadi said Wednesday's flood which killed two women, Musmarini Wiati and Siti Hadiastuti, at the Grogol river in South Jakarta would not have occurred had the warning system performed well in the flood-prone areas.

He said that currently the warning system was the most effective way to save people from the floods because it was still impossible to make the city entirely free from disaster under current economic conditions.

Under the system, people prepare for a flood after their local neighborhood association chiefs, being informed by flood control posts, alert them before any catastrophe occurs.

The system only performed well in the flood-prone area of Kampung Melayu in East Jakarta, where the people had information on an incoming flood hours ahead of time.

Marsiadi said that besides spreading the information through community leaders, the city authority should also have a patrol system to prevent people from becoming flood victims.

Mardjuan, however, said that the patrol mechanism could not perform well because of the limited number of officials.

To date, the city public works agency shows that there are only 10 duty officials and another 10 regular officials during flood season for each of the city's five mayoralties.

"The number is not enough because they, of course, can't work 24 hours. The administration should expand the organization of the flood fighters unit," he said.

Mardjuan, a councilor from the National Mandate Party (PAN), said the city administration should also have more flood control posts to monitor the flow of the city's rivers.

Currently, one post in Depok controls the flow of the Pesanggrahan river and another one in South Jakarta's Sawangan area controls the Ciliwung river. Meanwhile, there are 13 rivers total flowing in Jakarta.

The other 11 rivers are Mookervaart, Angke, Grogol, Krukut, Kalibaru Barat, Kalibaru Timur, Cipinang, Sunter, Buaran, Jati Kramat and Cakung. (ind)