Jakarta's damaged roads

The heavy downpours and devastating floods that have struck Jakarta since the end of January have been a calamity. The disaster not only killed 21 people on the first few days and 16 others from flood-related diseases, but also made 300,000 homeless. The floods also damaged 70 percent of the city's roads. Jakarta's authorities have claimed they predicted the disaster and held a meeting several days before the tragedy to discuss ways to overcome its impacts.

They also, apparently, prepared an emergency budget and set up special task forces to tackle the disaster. But the floods were so devastating that the newly prepared task forces became flood victims themselves. This situation made the public believe that the authorities' reaction to the catastrophe was extremely slow.

Now we hear that the city public works office is in need of Rp 286 billion (US$28 million) to repair damaged roads and bridges, but the already allocated budget is just Rp 210.3 billion.

According to official data, the city's roads cover 46 million square meters and measure 1.6 million kilometers. But the seriousness of the damage is not measured by the area covered, or the total length of roads affected, but by how many sections of each road or street are damaged. And the current floods have indiscriminately damaged all types of roads in almost all corners of the city.

According to media reports, the worst damaged roads, marked by deep potholes, are the city's main thoroughfares such as Jl. Thamrin and Jl. Sudirman, plus the area around the Semanggi intersection in South Jakarta. Also affected are most roads in the Grogol area, West Jakarta, Jl. Jos Sudarso, which connects the city and Tanjung Priok harbor, and all innercity toll roads. Jakarta is perhaps the only city in the world that charges tolls for vehicles using expressways within the city. Some of these affected roads have become virtually impassible because the holes are nearly half-a-meter deep.

Tired of bottleneck traffic jams the public is now asking when the repair work will begin. The question might not be difficult to answer, but there are no signs yet as to when the heavy downpours -- both in Jakarta and in the hilly area around Bogor, which sends the floodwaters down here -- will abate.

Anyway, the Ministry of Settlement and Territorial Development, after complaints by many road users, recently started to repair some damaged roads, but, under present conditions, such a job will cost a great deal of money and yield almost no result. For example, funds for road maintenance along the expressway connecting the city and Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, which was originally set at Rp 250 million per annum, had to be increased to Rp 300 million because the initial repair work was swept away by returning floods two days after work commenced.

But, we have also to realize that, on other occasions, supervision regarding the upgrading or repairing of roads has been very poor. In this country, the lack of serious supervision can often be connected to collusion between officials and the private sector.

However, the damage and repair work of the city's infrastructure will never come to end as long as Jakarta is prone to flooding. The city authorities have complained of their lack of influence in making the local authorities of surrounding areas, which are under the jurisdiction of West Java province, help preserve water catchment areas so that Jakarta can be saved from flooding. Thirteen of the rivers that flow through the capital city, come from West Java.

During the first days of devastation, many people expected President Megawati Soekarnoputri to not only inspect the stricken areas but to also take drastic steps to appoint a state administrator for the preservation of Greater Jakarta's infrastructure. This region needs such a figure to help avoid a calamity on the scale of the recent flooding from ever happening again.