Jakarta's 499th Anniversary: Rano Karno Reveals Focus on Continuing Predecessors' Programmes

Continuing and completing the work of previous DKI Jakarta governors is the main focus of the DKI Jakarta Provincial Government under the leadership of Pramono Anung and Rano Karno. This was conveyed by Deputy Governor of DKI Jakarta Rano Karno when discussing the meaning of Jakarta’s 499th anniversary. According to him, a five-year leadership period is too short to create new programmes that risk being left unfinished. “So if you ask what our programme is, we don’t have a new programme. We are only continuing what previous governors did,” Rano said in an interview with CNN Indonesia. He cited the demolition of abandoned monorail pillars in the HR Rasuna Said area, which the provincial government recently carried out. After the demolition, the area has now been reorganised. “Perhaps for decades, no one dared to cut down those monorail pillars, and alhamdulillah, they were launched yesterday by the Governor,” he said. He also touched on river normalisation to tackle flooding. Rano said river normalisation had been carried out by previous governors. “River normalisation has been done since the time of, excuse me, Mr Jokowi, the time of Bang Anies, the time of Ahok, we continue the river normalisation. Because the rivers in Jakarta are only those. Ciliwung, then in West Jakarta, how to manage it. We are not going to open a new river, for example,” he said. Rano explained that the anniversary is also a momentum to evaluate the development targets set in the Regional Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJMD). “The RPJMD remains five years, but we definitely divide it annually. How many kilometres of Ciliwung normalisation, then how much road infrastructure, because the APBD must be divided. So that is the function, whether we achieve our target this year? Alhamdulillah, it is achieved. It’s not just a ceremony,” he said.