Floods, garbage excluded from speech

Ahmad Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso is scheduled to deliver his 2001 city budget statement on Thursday. The statement is expected to highlight several successes over the last year, but avoid failures.

The biggest and hottest issue will be the administration's efforts last year to prevent flooding. This has been pushed to the fore by the three-weeks of major floods that hit the capital in late January and early February.

Despite sharp criticism of the administration's late response in providing relief for flood victims, Sutiyoso will likely omit the issue from his speech as the floods took place this year.

Another big issue in the city was the tension between Jakarta and Bekasi over the Bantar Gebang garbage dump, which accommodates most of the capital's trash.

Jakarta finally agreed to pay Rp 14 billion (US$1.4 million) in compensation to Bekasi, and spend Rp 29 billion on making good environmental damage in the vicinity of the 104-hectare site.

Just like the floods, the issue will most likely be omitted from the governor's speech.

Sutiyoso is expected to concentrate more on the city's security situation, which he will claim has improved despite the hundreds of street rallies over the year. He is likely to claim that the improvement is thanks to public order officers, who have helped security officials maintain order in the city.

The public order operations, which received Rp 40 billion from the city budget, were expected to boost the city's reputation in upholding the law.

The governor's speech is also due to reveal increases in Jakarta's revenue from city-owned firms.

However, cases of corruption involving city agencies and firms worth Rp 179 billion last year, as reported earlier by the City Audit Board, would likely also be deleted from the statement.

Sutiyoso will also discuss the Subdistrict Community Development Program (PPMK). The administration had allocated Rp 2 billion each to 25 poor subdistricts spread over the city's five mayoralties last year, but it was subsequently admitted that the program had failed.

However, the city has launched the same program again this year to help 267 flood-hit subdistricts by allocating Rp 250 million to each of them.

The city's 85 councillors are also expected to critically question other issues before deciding whether to accept or reject the budget speech.

Many doubt that the councillors will say "No" during next month's council session as the budget has already been allocated some Rp 17.8 billion.

Should Sutiyoso's speech be turned down, he still has another month to revise it.

He has repeatedly said he is not afraid of his speech being rejected.

"It's just a routine progress report. I hope it will be objectively evaluated and not politicized," he said.