Grant projects ignore the public

Grant projects ignore the public

JAKARTA: The Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) said on
Thursday that the implementation of projects involving foreign
grants in the country still ignored public participation and
transparency.

Teten Masduki of ICW said foreign countries had indeed new
concepts that demanded that the government carry out grant
projects transparently, but they closed their eyes to the poor
project implementation.

"There is not much change from the way projects with foreign
grants were implemented in the New Order regime," he told The
Jakarta Post on the sidelines of a seminar on foreign grant
projects research.

"Local people must start to participate in any projects that
will affect them," he added.

He cited the Dombo-Sayung irrigation project in Lampung,
carried out during former President Soeharto tenure that has
continued up to now, which created prolonged conflict over land
in the area.

Juan Planas of the Delegation of the European Commission said
that the European Union (EU) required transparency in all grant
projects and monitoring of their implementation.-JP