Govt won't demolish existing villas in Puncak

Govt won't demolish existing villas in Puncak

Annastashya Emmanuelle, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government will not demolish villas in Puncak even though
they have been blamed as being one of the causes of the
disastrous floods in Greater Jakarta recently, a senior minister
said on Friday.

After a meeting with President Megawati Soekarnoputri,
Minister of National Development and Planning Kwik Kian Gie told
the press that such action was unnecessary.

"It would be costly and difficult to tear down established
buildings ... we consider them a mistake of the past government.
It turns out that many of the villas were built with the
permission of the former government," said Kwik, who was
accompanied by Governor Sutiyoso at a State Palace meeting to
discuss the government's flood prevention and rehabilitation
program.

He was commenting on the follow-up to the government's plan to
tear down the villas built in the Puncak and Bogor areas, which
are one of the main causes of the flooding in the city as they
lead to the elimination of water catchment areas.

All Jakarta's 13 rivers originate in the mountains of the so-
called Bopunjur (Bogor, Puncak and Cianjur) area and flow through
the city before emptying into the Java sea in the northern
coastal area. Any environmental damage in Bopunjur will also
affect the city.

Kwik said that a new masterplan would soon be drawn up to
prevent major flooding from inundating the city in the future.
But the plan would only deal with the problems arising in Jakarta
and would not include the demolition of buildings or restrictions
on settlement in Bopunjur.

Kwik told reporters that the government had allocated Rp 20
trillion to be disbursed over 10 years for the repair and
extension of the city's flood control infrastructure.

Most of the funds would go toward the construction of the East
Flood Canal, dams in the Bogor and Depok areas, and the building
of a flood channel linking the Ciliwung and the Cisadane rivers.

The construction of the East Flood Canal will be a
continuation of the West Flood Canal project, which was
constructed during the Dutch colonial era, but is now silting up.

"The plan has been agreed by the House of Representatives and
the governor will soon put the project into effect," Kwik said.

Flooding in Jakarta is an annual occurrence every rainy
season, but the most recent floods were the most destructive in
the past five years.

Officials blamed the five-year weather cycle for the disaster,
saying that there was not much that could be done to avoid it.

The city administration has pointed to squatters residing
along riverbanks as another cause of the floods.

"We will also offer the squatters the opportunity to
participate in a transmigration program or to live in low-cost
apartments that will be built by the city administration,"
Sutiyoso said, adding that the city administration would trawl
through the real estate assets of the Indonesian Bank
Restructuring Agency (IBRA) so as to find a suitable location for
the apartments.

"This will involve major expenditure as there are so many
squatters at the moment ... I don't know how many apartments will
have to be built," he added.