Resettlement program offered to flood victims
Muninggar Sri Saraswati and Ahmad Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Governor Sutiyoso offered on Saturday to resettle 50,000 flood victims living along the city's riverbanks.
"I believe people are living along the riverbanks because there is no other choice," Sutiyoso told reporters, after presiding a gathering to alert public officials of post flood- related problems, held at the National Monument (Monas) park.
The recent floods have affected at least 381,000 people, and it is estimated that about 50,000 of them live along riverbanks, mostly in makeshift houses.
Sutiyoso said he was sure that many of the flood victims would join the program if the government could guarantee that they would receive proper houses and farms.
The transmigration program or resettlement of residents from densely populated areas such as Java and Bali to other areas as far as Irian Jaya is disliked amongst Jakartans because most residents are not accustomed to being farmers.
They choose to work in the informal sector here because they are able to earn at least Rp 20,000 a day (less than US$2), an amount that is not easily earned on land offered under the transmigration program.
Those who join the program are provided with two hectares of land and a house for a family, but many are reportedly disappointed because the land is not cultivatable.
Yet, Sutiyoso still believes that the transmigration program would solve the city's population problem.
"We should activate the program. They have overcrowded the city, and could create many social problems," he claimed.
He believes that the city's low-cost apartment development program could no longer solve the population problem due to the lack of funds and the large number of poor people.
"Can you imagine how much money we would need to build apartments for all those people?" he said.
The development of low-cost apartments here has often missed its target since many of the apartments were sold to middle- income residents, as seen in the fact that many cars were parked in the apartments' parking lots.
Two years ago, the administration planned to build an apartment without car access in the Bidara Cina area of East Jakarta, for people living along Ciliwung riverbank.
The then minister of settlement and regional infrastructure Erna Witoelar promised to finance the construction of the apartments and the city administration would provide the land.
But the plan was never realized with the change of government.
The new Minister of Settlement and Regional Infrastructure Soenarno announced earlier this month that the ministry received a grant worth US$10 million from the government of the Netherlands for the Ciliwung river normalization program.
Soenarno said the money would also be used for the resettlement of people who were living along the banks of Ciliwung River.