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.