Jakarta wants dump dispute over by Jan. 17

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Jakarta administration urged the Bekasi municipality administration to settle its internal dispute immediately and make a final decision on the Bantar Gebang dump before Jan. 17.

Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso said on Tuesday that Bekasi city councillors had established a special committee to settle the dispute with the Bekasi administration.

"The special committee will discuss the dispute between Bekasi administration and councillors, not about the Bantar Gebang dump. When they come to a unanimous decision then they will bring it to us. Just wait until Jan. 17," he said.

Bekasi City Council had set up a special committee on Monday to question mayor Akhmad Zurfaih and deputy mayor Mochtar Mohamad about their policy on the dump.

The councillors questioned the agreement signed between Jakarta and Bekasi that was made without the approval of the Bekasi Council on Dec. 22.

They also questioned the policy made by Akhmad and Mochtar on the garbage processing fee charged to Jakarta of Rp 85,000 (US$10) per ton for the capital's 6,000 tons of daily waste. Both Akhmad and Mochtar had also promised locals a Rp 50,000 monthly compensation for each of the 12,000 families in three subdistricts of the municipality.

Head of the special committee, Wahyu Prihantono, said over the phone that Sutiyoso could not give a deadline to Bekasi because it was an internal problem of the municipality.

"How much time it will take to solve this problem depends on how bad it is. It could be longer or shorter," he said.

Wahyu insisted that the councillors only had the copy of contract that ended on Dec. 31.

"The agreement signed on Dec. 22 was a violation of administrative procedures because the Bekasi executive did that without our knowledge," he said.

Wahyu said that the Bekasi administration had borrowed Rp 700 million from the province-owned Bank Jabar to distribute the monthly compensation to the 12,000 families.

Due to the dispute with Bekasi, Jakarta has had to temporarily dump its garbage on swampy land in Cilincing subdistrict and open land in Rorotan subdistrict, both in North Jakarta.

The capital also plans to use the Bojong dump to dump 2,000 tons of garbage amid strong opposition from the local community.

Jakarta has been using Bantar Gebang for more than 17 years.

Meanwhile, Bekasi has had to dump 400 tons of garbage on Jl. Sersan Aswan, Bekasi, after Jakarta closed the dump.