Papuans suffer food price rises

Papuans suffer food price rises

R.K. Nugroho, The Jakarta Post, Jayapura

The prices of basic foods in the Irian Jaya regency of Jayawijaya
have risen sharply due the lack of regular aircraft transporting
the essential commodities to the town's capital city of Wamena
from Jayapura.

As an example, rice is being sold at Rp 17,000 per kilogram in
Wamena and Rp 25,000 per kg in Puncak Jaya regency for the last
three months following last October's crash of a cargo plane that
regularly carried basic foodstuffs to the town.

The normal price of rice is Rp 3,500 per kg on the market. The
Jayapura Logistics Agency (Dolok) sells its rice to distributors
at only Rp 2,700 per kg.

"But in Wamena the price of Dolok-type rice reaches up to Rp
17,000 per kg," Irian Jaya's provincial Dolok head Sotono told
The Jakarta Post.

He said a similar type of rice was sold at Rp 25,000 per kg in
Puncak Jaya, a 150 percent increase from Rp 10,000 per kg in July
last year.

Sotono said the sharp increase was due to the high cost of
transportation from the provincial capital of Jayapura to Wamena.

Dolok was charged Rp 7,000 per kg of basic foodstuffs as a
transportation fee from Jayapura to Wamena, a trip which takes at
least 45 minutes by plane, he added.

From Wamena, the arriving foodstuffs will usually be
transported to Puncak Jaya by small planes to fulfill the demands
of people there. The transportation fee was an additional Rp
13,000 per kg for foodstuffs.

The soaring price of rice has forced most Papuans in
Jayawijaya to go back to their original tradition of eating
cassava as their daily staple food.

The infrequency of flights to remote towns has also caused the
prices of other staple foods to rise. Sugar was sold in Puncak
Jaya at Rp 9,000 per kg up from Rp 4,000 in July, while the price
of cooking oil increased from Rp 6,000 per kg to Rp 13,000.

The Transal cargo aircraft crashed last October in Jayapura's
Sentani airport due to engine failure, killing one person.

Since then, the regular cargo flights for basic commodities to
Wamena have almost come to a standstill.

The Indonesian Military (TNI) had sent a Hercules aircraft to
replace the ill-fated cargo plane, but the intervention still
failed to reduce the rising prices as it could only fly at least
once a month to Wamena carrying eight kinds of basic foodstuff.

"The efforts by TNI are not effective because the use of
Hercules is very limited and it has to focus on fulfilling the
military needs," Sotono said.

He said around 300,000 tons of basic commodities should be
transported to Wamena per month to meet the demands of locals.

However, the shortage of rice and other basic foods are
expected to be addressed in near future after private expedition
company PT Manunggal Air hired two Russian cargo planes to
replace its 11-ton load capacity Transal.

The two Antonov aircraft started to transport 48 tons of basic
foodstuffs from Jayapura to Wamena on Thursday.

"The flights will continue until the food crisis is
addressed," Sotono said.

Manunggal Air director Muchtar Yahya told the Post that the
arrival of the new cargo planes was expected to overcome the
flight problem confronting the Irian Jaya administration to
transport staple commodities to Wamena.

"We hope the current prices of basic foods will decrease by at
least a half," he said.

He said his company rented the two planes for a period of
three months, adding that the rental agreement can be extended if
necessary.

Yahya said the ill-fated plane was being repaired in Germany.