Recent floods not national disaster: Govt

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government has refused to characterize the recent extensive floods that have paralyzed the capital and other cities throughout the country as a national disaster despite mounting pressure from the public and the fact that the catastrophe has killed at least 58 people nationwide.

Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Jusuf Kalla told reporters after a meeting with Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso at City Hall that it was not necessary to designate the recent calamity a national disaster.

"There is no need to declare it a national disaster. It's just a (common) disaster," Jusuf said after the meeting which was also attended by five other Cabinet ministers.

Impatient with the government's sluggish and inept response to the floods, People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) Speaker Amien Rais urged the government on Monday to declare a national disaster in the wake of the calamity, which claimed more than 30 lives in Jakarta alone.

"What the government has been doing is far from being adequate. The designation of the floods as a national disaster is needed to help maximize interdepartmental cooperation," Amien said after receiving the Czech deputy prime minister and foreign affairs minister M. Jan Kavan.

Amien added that judging from the impact of the flooding nationwide, it was more than enough to warrant the declaration of a national disaster.

To make matter worse, up to now there were still many complaints from flood victims complaining that humanitarian aid had yet to reach them, he said.

The House of Representatives' Commission I on foreign policy and security affairs also concurred in Amien's remarks.

The declaration of a national disaster, according to commission member Ibrahim Ambong would enable all national forces, including the military, to launch a concerted effort to deal with the disaster.

Rather than just declaring the floods to be a national disaster, however, Jusuf was of the opinion that it was more important for the central government to take action so as to help local administrations deal with the aftermath of the flooding.

Arguing that the declaration of a national disaster was more appropriate to past years when the government was very centralized, he continued by saying, "It's now the regional autonomy era. We don't need those kinds of terms. Action is more important than words."

According to the Minister of Resettlement and Regional Infrastructure, Soenarno, the cost of the physical damage caused by the floods in Jakarta had yet to be calculated, but the cost of similar calamities in North Sumatra, South Sulawesi and Java's north coast was estimated at about Rp 150 billion.

Meanwhile, a lack of water catchment areas due to the rapid increase in the population of the capital city was to blame for the severe flooding and landslides that had hit the capital city and surrounding areas.

"Heavier rainfall would not make any difference if there were good water catchment areas. But, the ability to absorb water has been decreasing," State Minister for the Environment Nabiel Makarim told reporters after a hearing with legislators here on Monday.

Nabiel revealed that there had been efforts made by the government to prevent the floods, but rampant violations of the regulations had thwarted them.

The minister recalled a number of violations by businessmen and state officials who were opposed to environmental conservation policies.

When Emil Salim was the environment minister in the 1980s, he had issued a decree banning the construction of villas in the hilly resort area of Puncak in Bogor, West Java, from which all the major rivers traversing Jakarta originate.

But business interests had prevailed and the conservation policies had been abandoned.

"Several lakes between Bogor and Jakarta have also been reclaimed to build real estate complexes. This has reduced the extent of water catchment areas," Nabiel said.

Speaking to Antara in New York, Emil Salim said the government could have prevented the disaster 10 years ago through an integrated conservation program.

Unfortunately, he said, his recommendations were ignored by his colleagues in government.

"Now, we can learn a lesson about the causes and the effects of flooding," Emil said.

In a related development, Minister of Research and Technology Hatta Rajasa said the government would try to artificially modify the weather so as to reduce the amount of rain falling on Jakarta and its surrounding areas.

"Through such modification, the Cumulus clouds above the capital city will be driven further away," he said, adding that a similar modification program had been successfully undertaken previously in Semarang, Central Java, and had managed to reduce rainfall by 30 percent.