Resettlement program offered to flood victims

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.