Public participation needed

Public participation needed

Flooding continues to pose a danger to Jakarta because the
city administration has yet to find a way to deal with the
problem. However, flooding is not the problem of the Jakarta
administration alone; it is also a problem for the citizenry.

Unfortunately, when floods occur the victims are mostly
citizens who, for financial reasons, have no other choice but to
live in areas vulnerable to flooding. The city administration,
despite its weaknesses, has been working to prevent flooding in
the capital through the implementation of various programs, many
of which require public involvement.

Regrettably, these efforts have yet to bear fruit. The appeal
to residents not to dump their garbage in the city's rivers or on
the streets has not been successful. A gubernatorial decree
making littering illegal has failed. And with these failed
efforts, the dream of having clean rivers traversing the city
remains just a dream.

It is clear that garbage dumped by residents into neighborhood
drains and sewers has severely polluted Jakarta's rivers and
larger waterways. And the administration's repeated warnings of
the dangers posed to the flood control system by the careless
dumping of waste have been useless.

Many sluice gates are clogged with garbage, endangering the
whole flood control system. Another part of the system that has
suffered from the dumping of garbage into rivers is the pump
stations. Many of the pumps have been damaged after garbage was
sucked up into them, shortening their life spans and putting
pressure on maintenance teams.

The Indonesian capital has numerous pump stations, some of
which were built more than 20 years ago. However, many of them
are not operating because of age and, possibly, poor maintenance.
Earlier this month, President Megawati Soekarnoputri officiated
the reopening of five pump stations in South, Central, West and
North Jakarta. These stations have the capacity to prevent
thousands of hectares of land from being flooded.

But repairing old pump stations alone will not stop flooding
in the capital. Minister of Resettlement and Regional
Infrastructure Sunarno acknowledged that an integrated and
strategic program was needed to deal with flooding, and that part
of such a program needed to be the construction of the Eastern
Flood Canal, which is still in the planning stages.

Unfortunately, the Jakarta administration is having trouble
moving ahead with this project because of the amount of
compensation being demanded by those residents whose property is
needed for the canal.

The compensation being offered by the city is based on the
value of the land according to the property tax the residents
pay, which is officially Rp 600,000 per square meter in the area
in question. In reality, however, the price of the land is much
higher. This is why property owners want the city to pay more
money for their land, which is the only asset of value many of
these people posses. In the meantime, construction of the flood
canal continues to be delayed.

While waiting for the canal project to commence, the repair of
pump stations is a helpful measure. Still, it is clear that
public participation is necessary in the effort to stop flooding.
Unfortunately, the continued use of rivers as dumps by residents,
and their refusal to accept the compensation being offered to
them by the city for their land, are indicative of the public's
resistance to the administration's initiatives.

A better plan must therefore be devised in order to find a
win-win solution that will allow for public participation and
enable the government to carry out its public service programs on
schedule.