Political will 'badly needed' in running projects

JAKARTA (JP): City councillors have criticized the administrations of Jakarta, Bogor, Tangerang and Bekasi over their lack of political will to synchronize their development programs.

They said over the weekend that disharmony in the implementation of programs by the four administrations would only hinder development in the areas.

Ali Wongso Sinaga of the Golkar faction said Saturday that political will was badly needed to help accommodate differences and enable the administrations to achieve a balanced progress in development.

He said political will can be translated into a single management, "which does not necessarily mean that the administrations must merge into one. The point is they should be willing to cooperate with each other."

"A united spatial plan is also needed because at the moment, each administration has its own plan, which is made based on its own conditions and concerns," he said.

Lukman F. Mokoginta of the Indonesian Democratic Party said Saturday that the disharmony between the four administrations' development programs had severely affected Jakarta.

"Jakarta administration, for example, wants Bogor to function mainly as a catchment but in reality, the latter continues allocating some areas in Puncak and Bogor for housing," he said.

The elimination of catchments, especially in Bogor, would make Jakarta prone to flooding, said Lukman.

He said that the government of Jakarta and West Java, which administers Bogor, Bekasi and Tangerang, had actually formed the Coordination Board in Development and Planning in 1973 in a bid to synchronize the development in the four administration areas.

Lukman said the board focused its work on motivating the administrations to coordinate their development programs, especially on aspects which were considered essential, including water resources, transportation, population and housing.

Saud Rahman of the United Development Party said the board, however, had not functioned as well as expected.

"The board has not functioned in the sense that it fails to motivate the administrations to cooperate with each other whenever they plan on some development projects," he said Friday.

The failure, however, was not dominantly due to the board's capability, he said.

"We feel that the administrations just don't have the good will to cooperate with each other. They have different interests and do not want to compromise," said Saud.

According to Lukman, the board did not have the legal authority to oversee the administrations' development and planning programs so that it would never be able to prevent one administration from making programs which would affect another administration's concern.

Ali said the central government, through the National Development Planning Board (Bappenas), also formed a development coordination board last year with the four administrations.

Under its establishment, he said, Bappenas was expected to arbitrate any conflict of interest among the administrations.

The board was now working to complete the united spatial plan, he said. "Hopefully, it can be completed before 2000." (cst)