Just do it, Sut!

Few people really believed in Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso's sincerity when he said that he was ready to resign if people wanted him out in the wake of the worst ever flood disaster to hit Jakarta this week. What gave his silly game away was when he added the caveat that he would only resign if proper mechanisms and procedures to remove him from office were observed.

His remarks, made in response to widespread criticism of his administration's poor handling of the flood disaster, have instead portrayed him as arrogant. The remarks only add insult to injury because they come at a time when many residents of this city are crying for a helping hand, and demanding for some semblance of professional accountability from the administration. The last thing they wanted to hear today was some self-serving empty rhetoric from their governor.

That there are growing public demands for Sutiyoso's head is understandable. This week's flood disaster caps a long list of policy failures by his administration, which has far exceeded its welcome. This list includes its inability to deal with the problems of Jakarta's garbage, traffic, housing, law enforcement and public order, and corruption. The list goes on and on. Here is an administration which is better known for creating new problems, rather than solving old ones.

Even before this week's floods, Jakarta already barely functioned as a city, with its poorly maintained physical infrastructure stretched to the limit.

This is no better illustrated than the severe traffic congestion that many Jakartans have come to accept as part of their "normal" life. For many residents, spending two-to-three hours on the road getting to work in the morning, and two-to- three more hours getting home in the evening is part of their daily chores. When the floods struck the capital this week, many of these people spent double the amount of time on the road, grumbling but resigned in their helplessness.

The flood has exposed an administration that is not only ineffective and incompetent in preventing a disaster, even when it had plenty of forewarning, but one that was totally impotent when the disaster did strike.

The flood brought untold losses and misery to the city and its residents that it is only right and proper if we demand some form of public accountability from the Jakarta administration, particularly from the governor.

At least 17 people were killed and five reported missing. Nearly 200,000 people had to be sheltered because their homes were flooded. Now they are just beginning to count the material losses. Millions of productive man hours were lost during the three days as only a few people managed to turn up for work because of floods. How many millions of liters of gasoline were burned as vehicles were stranded in traffic jams across Jakarta? Add the stresses, frustrations and anxieties that the disaster caused on the people, the material and nonmaterial losses are so huge that it is only appropriate that someone should be held accountable.

Instead of explanations, however, we have heard more and more excuses from the administration about why Jakarta became flooded. And it is almost always somebody else's fault.

We have heard officials blaming the construction in areas meant for the city's catchment areas, and officials blaming the poor for building settlements along riverbanks. We have heard officials blaming residents for recklessly disposing of their garbage.

While these arguments make sense, the officials forget that it is their job as the local government to put these things in order in the first place. It is precisely because they failed to do their jobs that these things were allowed to happen and we had the worst floods ever this week.

Jakarta could be a much better city to live and work in if the administration knew what it was doing. As luck would have it, we are stuck with a governor who knows very little at all about his job and even less so about public accountability.

If Governor Sutiyoso has no real intention of resigning from his job, he should not go around mouthing off about it, at a time when there are many people angry at his incompetence. If he really has the interests of the people at heart, he should follow the advice of a famous logo of a sneaker brand: Just do it!