Residents join hands to clean Cipinang River

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The residents of Cipinang Besar Utara subdistrict in East Jakarta recently received an unexpected invitation from their subdistrict chief. The offer was not to attend a party or a ceremony, but to participate in a community program to clean up the Cipinang river.

The event, which received the full support of the local council, youth activists and neighborhood figures, was aimed at easing the floods that will hit the area in the upcoming rainy season.

The floods in January and February of this year were a result of an overflow of the Cipinang river, which inundated 13 of the 14 communities in the Cipinang Besar Utara subdistrict of Jatinegara district.

The chairman of the subdistrict council, Rachmat Dharma Setiawan, said on Tuesday that a meeting with public figures in the subdistrict concluded that vast amounts of garbage in the river would pose a serious problem during the next rainy season.

"About 35,000 people out of the subdistrict's population of 41,000 were affected by the floods last year," Rachmat said.

Similarly, the Cipinang Besar Selatan and Cipinang Muara subdistricts, which border on Cipinang Besar Utara, were also inundated by floodwater.

Rachmat claimed that about 1,000 people took part in the voluntary clean-up effort on Oct. 13 and worked hand in hand to rid the black, polluted river of garbage. Many volunteers did not hesitate to enter the shallow water, which would overflow during the rainy season, to pick up the floating waste.

The people, as well as local officials and council members in the subdistrict, said they were not sure whether their work could significantly relieve the annual disaster, as garbage was not the only problem plaguing the river.

They said that since the river had silted up, floods in the area would only be significantly reduced by dredging it.

Rachmat said that several council members had met with Public Work Agency officials, and explained that a 2.5-kilometer-long section of the river needed to be dredged.

However, Rachmat was told that the agency had dredged a section of the river in the subdistrict earlier in the year, but the project cost Rp 800 million and that only covered the expenses to dredge 500 meters.

"I didn't know it would take that much money to dredge only 500 meters of river," Rachmat said, adding that he had negotiated with a contractor to dredge 500 meters of the river for Rp 60 million.

Members of the subdistrict council and several other local figures, with the subdistrict chief's approval, have formed a team to collect money from residents for the purpose of dredging the river. The subdistrict head agreed to the initiative.

The team, chaired by H.M Rauf from community unit II of the subdistrict, is distributing pledge forms in denominations of between Rp 1,000 and Rp 50,000 to people in the subdistrict.

"It is up to the people to decide on what they can contribute, depending on their financial situation," said Rachmat.

The team is targeting to raise Rp 24 million in contributions from the public, while another Rp 36 million is expected to come from private donors and the government.

Rachmat said the team had so far collected Rp 10 million from residents and other donors and a loan from a fund set up by the city administration for the empowerment of people at the subdistrict level.

Residents in Cipinang Besar Utara have welcomed the plan to dredge the Cipinang river and hoped that the fund-raising team would not destroy people's trust as stories were circulating on corruption in the city and the country.

"All the clean-up efforts are a good idea as we know that these floods cause misery for many people here. We hope that the team will keep their promise and use the money properly," said R. Hidayat, a resident of community unit VIII in the subdistrict.

He said that as a low-income earner, he could only contribute Rp 2,500.

Unfortunately, the efforts started by residents in Cipinang Besar Utara have not been followed by people in other subdistricts, even though there are 73 locations in the city that are prone to flooding based on data from the City Public Works Agency.

Instead of cleaning up the river, many people have made it their garbage dump, hampering community efforts to resolve the flood problem in their areas.

"We have not taken any collective action so far, but because floods always hit this area, people take their own preventive measures, like putting their things on the table or in higher places in their homes," said Hendra, a resident of Klender subdistrict in Duren Sawit, East Jakarta.