The road to nowhere
The road to nowhere
It has been a bad week for the contractors assigned to build
the city's triple tier transit system. They have committed two
blunders, and that before the massive project even begins.
First came the bulldozing of hundreds of trees planted only a
month ago as part of the city's regreening drive. The contractors
claimed that the plot of land at Tanah Kusir in South Jakarta was
needed for the ceremony to lay the project's first stone. Despite
promising to replant the trees elsewhere, the move upset many
people, not least Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso, who has sent off a
letter of protest.
Then came the abrupt postponement of the ceremony itself.
Originally planned for yesterday, the ceremony has now been
delayed until after the General Session of the People's
Consultative Assembly, leaving the private contractors with the
embarrassing task of contacting the glittering array of VIPs to
whom invitations had been extended.
For a project of this scale and importance, a worse start
could not have been possible. After only one further gaffe, the
triple tier project could become known as the triple blunder
project. Judging by the way in which the contractors explained
how they intend to finance the project, it will not be long
before that dubious title is well and truly earned.
Jibes aside, these incidents suggest that the project is being
poorly coordinated and also point out another more disturbing
fact: the project is being rushed and the public kept at bay.
Jakarta desperately needs a new and efficient public transport
system, which the triple decker project promises to provide. A
mass rapid transit system is an idea which the city
administration has been kicking around for over a decade now.
With each passing day the urgency grows, as the current public
transportation system is on the verge of collapse.
The triple decker system will combine a light railway, a toll
road and an ordinary road extending for 23 km from Bintaro in the
south to Kota in the north. The consortium running the project
are grouped under PT Citra Moda Margakencana Persada and include
PT Citra Lamtoro Gung Persada, Perumka (the state-railway
company), and PT Jasa Marga (the state-toll road operator).
Before the economic crisis, the project was estimated to cost
Rp 6.2 trillion. This week, as construction was about to begin,
the contractors did not have the courtesy to inform the public,
who will eventually pick up the bill, what the post-crisis costs
will be. There are suspicions that the city administration has
also been kept in the dark regarding the new cost of the project.
The contractors appear to be willing to risk starting without
any credit financing, which is presently very difficult to
obtain. Initially the project will be financed with the equity of
the three shareholders. Other companies, such as steel and cement
companies, may join the consortium at a later date, with each new
entrant introducing their own equity to help sustain the project
which is expected to be completed in 2001. When the economy
improves, the consortium will turn to credit financing. This
highly unusual opening gambit will put the project at
considerable risk should it fail.
This project is being launched to inject a badly needed dose
of confidence into the economy, so the contractors say. It will
show investors at home and abroad that even in the depths of
crisis, Indonesia can launch a project of this scale. From scant
details provided by the contractors, it appears that the project
is launched with the intention of creating 500 new jobs in its
initial phase.
The launch of this project is intended to be a showcase.
Making an exhibition out of constructing the transit system is
not necessarily bad, but only if the contractors can put on a
good show. For a start, that means better public relations than
the botched beginnings of earlier this week and, most important
of all, greater public involvement in the planning and execution
of this vital project.