Rp 13t needed to repair facilities destroyed by floods
Rp 13t needed to repair facilities destroyed by floods
JAKARTA (JP): It will take the city administration Rp 13 trillion (US$6.04 billion) to replace the buildings and infrastructure destroyed by recent floods, Deputy Governor for Social Welfare R.S. Museno said yesterday.
The fund will be used to repair or replace dikes, houses and roads.
"Rebuilding will take five times more money than is available in the city budget," he said, after receiving 2,000 garments from the Jakarta chapter of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry for distribution to flood victims.
Museno urged Jakartans to help the municipal administration repair the damage.
The municipal administration, in cooperation with the Ministry of Public Works, is helping to repair a total of 2,500 meters of river banks along the Ciliwung river in five mayoralties with special disaster emergency funds.
The total cost of the project is Rp 1.4 billion. The ministry is contributing Rp 800 million, while the city administration is providing Rp 600 billion, he said.
The City Council has approved the city budget for 1995/1996 fiscal year at Rp 2.7 trillion, with the administration allocating Rp 350 million of that to help the victims.
The Rp 350 million from the municipal administration has been distributed to the five mayoralties, with Central Jakarta and East Jakarta each receiving Rp 100 million, while the remaining three mayoralties each got Rp 50 million.
The Ministry of Social Affairs has granted Rp 187.5 million in aid for the flood victims.
Last week, Museno said that the city administration had collected Rp 650 million fund from the public through a special bank account.
Public
Several areas in the city were inundated by flood water on Jan. 7 and 8. A total of 354,000 people were affected by from the disaster.
The floods, which were said to be the worst in 20 years, killed 10 people, devastated five mayoralties and inflicted a total of Rp 39.54 billion in material losses. The floods washed away 200 houses and destroyed at least 200 other buildings.
In a related development, Antara reported that the budgetary commission of the House of Representative considers the city budget too small to overcome problems such as floods, traffic jams and slum areas.
"Jakarta should set its budget five times higher than the current budget to overcome the problems," Soejanto, spokesman for the commission, said in a preliminary meeting yesterday.
The commission said that the city budget can be increased by increasing the city administration's original revenues.
He suggested that the city administration can increase its budget by increasing the volume of exports and intensifying the collection of property taxes.
"About 91 percent of the property taxes is city income, therefore if the city administration can intensify the collection of the taxes it will get more revenue," Soejanto said. (yns)