Japan grants direct aid for squatters

JAKARTA: The Japanese Social Development Fund (JSDF) has granted US$2 million in aid for squatters in Jakarta, West Java and Banten provinces.

Endang Widayati, the director of housing and resettlement at the Ministry of Resettlement and Regional Infrastructure, said here on Monday that the fund will not be given to the government but will be given directly to the squatters.

"The government will only help to facilitate the process of improving the living conditions of squatters," she said.

She noted that, although the government had been trying to evict the illegal squatters from several prohibited areas, they kept returning to the same places.

Experts, she said, had blamed the government for the situation because it was due to its failure to conceive and implement a comprehensive development program that had created the squatter problem in the first place.

"We can't just evict them, as they have the same rights as any other city residents," she noted. -- JP