Rp 1.9t of remainds unspent

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.