Managing Jakarta
It has been a long time since the former state minister of the environment, Emil Salim, has publicly discussed subjects that interest us all. So it is all the more gratifying to find that, at a monthly lecture at Jakarta's City Hall, he showed that he had lost none of his acute understanding of the problems confronting us in these critical times.
Emil Salim told the City Hall employees at the meeting that Jakarta and the surrounding areas of Bogor, Tangerang and Bekasi need one governor with ministerial-level authority to face future challenges. Only then would the city be able to properly manage the problems facing it. In the years to come, ex-minister Salim said, Jakarta will play an increasing role as an international growth center in one of the world's most dynamic regions: Southeast Asia.
Of course we all know the magnitude of the problems which Jakarta must confront now and in the future. But in almost two decades, Jakarta will become one of the world's "megacities" with an estimated population of more than 21 million. If things do not change by the 21st century, ex-minister Salim warned, we can expect more complications in one of the world's 10 megacities.
Of all the areas of Indonesia, Jakarta, according to Emil Salim, is the most important in terms of higher-level management. The city's population growth, which averages 4 percent a year, is higher than the national average. The city's demographic makeup is the worst in the country in terms of distribution of wealth, which leads to an ever increasing crime rate and other social problems, of which the July 27th riots could be an example.
Jakarta's growing traffic congestion needs no further comment except that, as ex-minister Salim said, this and other shortcomings are always blamed on the city administration "while the source of the problems actually comes from higher authorities". It has, for example, been a longstanding complaint of the city authorities that little can be done to improve the city's public bus system as long as the final authority over key elements lies elsewhere. The PPD bus company, which is controlled by the Ministry of Transportation, is an example.
Other examples easily come to mind. To maintain an adequate standard of livability, for example, Jakarta needs ample supplies of clean water. The city's water catchment areas, however, lie outside city boundaries, in the province of West Java, where they are threatened by the unregulated construction of villas and housing estates. Many steps have been announced, including a presidential instruction, to control this haphazard development. There have been few results.
Clearly, something must be done to reduce, if not eliminate, these problems if Jakarta is to function properly as the national capital of Southeast Asia's largest and most populous country -- not to mention to fulfill its role as an increasingly important regional growth center. We do not know what difficulties will stop ex-minister Salim's suggestion becoming a reality. But the essence of his proposition is clear: It is crucial that Jakarta be placed under a level of management that can make integrated solutions to its most pressing problems. This, surely, is a proposition which most of us agree with. We hope the necessary steps in that direction can be made before the complications become too great to be unraveled.