Rp 1.9t of remainds unspent

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

The halted land acquisition for several infrastructure projects in the capital has been blamed on the city administration's failure to make use of the entire 2004 budget.

Of the Rp 12.26 trillion (US$1.35 billion) total budget, some Rp 1.9 trillion has not been used.

That figure is an improvement from last year, when the administration failed to absorb Rp 2.24 trillion of the Rp 11.56 trillion budget.

Several projects have been halted or altered because of land acquisition issues, including the construction of the East Flood Canal, the completion of the Pulo Gebang bus terminal and the construction of several community parks.

City Council Commission D for development affairs said the administration had only spent Rp 38 billion of the Rp 150 billion allocated to acquire 40 hectares of land for the East Flood Canal.

When completed, the canal will be 23 kilometers long and between 100 and 300 meters wide.

The East Flood Canal will join the existing West Flood Canal to create a semicircular canal that will channel excess water from the 13 rivers that flow through the capital.

The construction of parks also has been affected by land acquisition delays. The city had planned to acquire some 50 hectares of land in 2004 for the construction of parks, but has only acquired 2.1 hectares.

Five commissions on the city council are holding hearings with their counterparts in the Jakarta administration to discuss the administration's spending from the 2004 budget.

The assistant to the city secretary for economic affairs, Ma'mun Amin, said on Friday nearly every city agency was unable to spend the funds allocated to them in the 2004 budget.

City Planning Board secretary Soegiarta put the blame on the complicated bureaucracy for halting the infrastructure projects.

The chairman of the council's Commission C for financial affairs, Daniel Abdullah Sani, said the administration had yet to submit a detailed report on the unused funds.

"We will discuss it during the deliberation of the city budget next month," he said.

"I think all of the agencies in the administration need to make better development plans so they can perform better next year," he said.