Govt view of floods as common disaster deplored

Yogita Tahilramani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Calling killer floods a "common" disaster, particularly floods that sweep away 65 lives nationwide within days and leave hundreds of thousands of people without homes or employment, reflects the government's ill intentions of not wanting to part with extra relief funds.

Former Jakarta governor Ali Sadikin said on Tuesday that the killer floods were a national disaster because of the unprecedented damage to the economy and infrastructure of the capital and other major cities, not to mention the loss of lives, homes, food and jobs.

"People are dying daily because of floods and hundreds of thousands of people nationwide have lost everything... no homes, no jobs," Ali, who served as Jakarta governor from 1966 to 1977, told The Jakarta Post.

"The distribution of food nationwide has been severely disrupted due to damaged roads and swollen rivers. Flood victims are prone to illnesses. They are literally living in water, without electricity or communication. If this is not a national disaster, what is it then?"

Ali added that the government's failure to declare the floods a national disaster clearly reflected its reluctance to part with extra relief funds, which could most likely amount to hundreds of billions of rupiah.

"By declaring that it is a national disaster, the government would also be admitting its failure in delivering relief to the thousands of homeless and sick people across the nation," Ali said.

The government's sluggish response to the floods prompted People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) Speaker Amien Rais to urge the government to declare a national disaster.

"What the government has been doing is far from adequate. The designation of the floods as a national disaster is needed to help maximize interdepartmental cooperation," Amien said, adding that complaints were still pouring in from flood victims who said that aid had not reached them.

Former president Abdurrahman Wahid issued a decree last year establishing a national coordinating body to handle natural or manmade disasters, and the problem of refugees as a result of those disasters. The body is known as the Bakornas PBP.

Decree No. 3/2001 not only states that the body's executives answer only to the President, but also that the body is in charge of the formulation and execution of policies on overcoming a disaster, whether natural or manmade.

Paragraph 1a of Article 12 of Chapter 6 of the decree states that Bakornas PBP must provide clear guidelines in the policies formulated, particularly "on distribution and use of aid, and transparency in the distribution of aid."

Meanwhile, political analyst Arbi Sanit added that it was impossible for local administrations to deal with the aftermath of the flooding on their own, without extra funds from the central government.

Arbi said that the central government should not simply wash its hands of the problem, by implying that it was more the problem and responsibility of each local administration.

"This is not the problem of individual local administrations alone. One problem creates another... and it becomes a national burden, in matters of infrastructure, the economy and loss of jobs... as an example, see what happened in Lampung," Arbi said.

Floods over the last week that have affected nearly the entire province have brought not only material losses to local people and the administration but also have disrupted schools, farms and the supply of electricity to Lampung and the surrounding areas.

Thousands of hectares of rice fields which were to be harvested in another month in East and South Lampung, Tanggamus and Way Kanan, have been seriously damaged.

Speaking along the same lines, Ali Sadikin said that the massive mudslides in Situbondo, East Java, and the vast flooding that inundated nearly all of Pekalongan in Central Java, had shocked the nation.

"Is the central government telling us that the East Java governor or Central Java governor can handle this horrific problem by themselves? Impossible. Regional autonomy is no reason for the government to wash its hands of this problem," Ali said.

Minister of People's Welfare Jusuf Kalla had earlier said that the declaration of a national disaster was more appropriate to past years when the government was very centralized, adding, "It's now the regional autonomy era. We don't need those kinds of terms."

Ali said it was crucial that certain local administrations of major cities considered one option to overcome natural or manmade disasters. The administrations of Jakarta, Tangerang, Bekasi and Bogor, for instance, would be stronger if they "united into one administration, called the Jabotabek administration," he said.