Decentralization a must for RI

Decentralization a must for RI

By Iwan Mucipto

JAKARTA (JP): The Jakarta Post of Feb. 26 suggested that the
troubled triple-tier transit system project was in danger of
becoming the "triple blunder" project. It has in fact already
earned that title and the first blunder was to have initiated the
project in the first place.

That Jakarta needs an urgent solution to its traffic problem
is beyond doubt, but it is questionable whether more of the same
is the solution, or part of the problem.

City planners are well aware that building more roads attracts
more cars and more people. This process continues -- development
leads to more development until, like the emergence of a
malignant growth, overdevelopment and maldevelopment result.

What Jakarta and the country needs is not more toll roads,
although there are some parties who benefit from tollways, but
policies to decentralize the country.

Jakarta is the product of extreme centralization
characteristic of an "integralistic" state. It is the
metropolitan heart of a classic center-periphery structure, where
the center claims profits made in the periphery and reinvests
those profits in the center alone.

Jakarta is the administrative, commercial and industrial
center of the country. Almost 80 percent of money in circulation
throughout Indonesia is in Jakarta, from where it largely flows
out of the country in the direction of the industrialized North,
the global metropole.

Money and investment in the heartland attract a steady stream
of migrant job seekers from the hinterland. This drains
peripheral areas of prime human resources and clogs Jakarta's
streets.

The financial might of Jakarta reinforces the process, leading
eventually to a top heavy, oppressive and exploitative center,
which acts as a bottle-neck to development. In the end the center
will self-destruct amid decay, glaring inequalities and social
unrest.

By initiating projects, development and investments all
concentrated in the same area, the country is not coming up with
a solution, but staving off disaster. Partial solutions only
attract yet more problems which need solutions, perpetuating the
viscous circle.

Regarding transport in the city, draconian measures to curb
car use coupled with the provision of alternative means of
transport are required. Strictly enforced car-free zones with an
adequate bus service to compensate is an example of one way to
proceed.

Unfortunately Indonesia has the bad luck to have a very strong
executive branch and a soft state. Democracy is thwarted and
popular feedback and "reverse transmission" which normally
enables the government to adjust to changing circumstances is
stifled. At the same time, the country's elite is above the law
and this results in confusion. No rule ever can be enforced,
particularly when applied to the Jakarta-based elite.

An alternative solution to the transport crisis is
comprehensive urban and regional planning. But again, a lack of
vision and political will, vested interests, institutional
rivalry, poor coordination, corruption and the unruly leaders of
the ruling elite destroy every good plan.

They build factories in greenbelt areas and villas in
water catchment zones. They even cut down hundreds of trees just
to hold a single ceremony. In doing so they did not hesitate to
go over the head of the governor of Indonesia's capital city.
This latter misdemeanor only came to light when the governor
unexpectedly voiced his displeasure.

A third alternative would be to separate the functions of the
city. Jakarta, centered around West Java's main port, could be
the commercial center of the country. Light industry could remain
in the area, but the capital functions and heavy industry would
be relocated to other areas of Indonesia.

Java has become overdeveloped. Property developers are
cramming industrial parks, satellite cities, tollways and golf
courses onto the most densely populated island in the world. It
has even been proposed to add nuclear reactors to the list of
developments already placed on this volcanic island.

Java, by virtue of its fertile soils, happens to be the rice
basket of the nation. Claiming land for industrial projects has
caused agricultural production to fall at the cost of losing self
sufficiency in rice production.

Meanwhile the government is spending trillions of rupiah on
attempts to develop a complicated farming system on Kalimantan's
acid wetlands. Localized successes are grasped at to justify the
massive investments and high risks of failure, of which recent
history has many examples. That is not to mention the problems of
pollution, soil degradation and consequent cycle of droughts and
floods which will follow.

Attempts have been made to relocate people on the outer
islands of Indonesia, but at the same time Java has been
developed into a magnet for reverse transmigration.

To solve this problem, more of the same is not required. Only
by reversing the process through decentralization will a solution
be found. The process should be initiated by removing the capital
to Kalimantan and relocating heavy industry to sites closer to
the Pacific Rim, closer to raw materials (iron ore, coal) and
farther away from population and agricultural centers.

Java should remain as the nation's rice basket, and the burden
of centralization and overdevelopment should be lifted from her
shoulders.

Transmigration policies should be altered. No longer should
farmers conditioned on Java's fertile soils be encouraged to work
the sandy and acid soils of the outer islands, where they cut
down forests, clash with indigenous people, and remain poor.
Instead ecologically sound agriculture and agribusiness should be
encouraged in Java and white and blue-collar workers should be
transferred to the periphery. This would break up the center and
reverse the brain drain from the hinterland.

This article does not claim to offer a solution, but sets out
to illustrate that overdevelopment cannot be cured by further
development. I hope it will also remind people of an idea, first
touted during Sukarno's reign, to relocate the capital as the
first step toward a real decentralization process that goes well
beyond MPR decrees which grant limited autonomy to the outlying
provinces without letting up on efforts to sink Java like the
Titanic. I happen to be a below deck passenger.

The triple-tier project may be grand but my salary has just
been cut, so I have a problem appreciating this grandeur. I'd
rather suffer for something real, such as political reform
including decentralization, since then I could become an
entrepreneur in Lombok, instead of having to work in an office in
Jakarta and add to the problem of transportation.