To protect Jakarta

To protect Jakarta

The government has announced that the weekend resort of Puncak, south of Jakarta, which has been blamed for its part in causing the flooding in the capital city, will be turned into a conservation area.

This means that no more building permits will be issued in the mountain resort area and that existing buildings for which there are no permits will be demolished.

The government also announced that the Puncak plantations will be turned into forest conservation sites as part of the program to protect the capital against floods.

However, nothing major can be expected to come of all this because most buildings there are covered by licenses.

The problem is that the whole Puncak strip has long since been overcrowded. All the water that falls in the area runs down the slopes of the hills and mountains into the rivers that wind through Jakarta.

Efforts to bring order to the Puncak resort area can only help save Jakarta if the majority of the bungalows and hotels there are demolished. This is a really tough job and a very costly one. Just to tear down the shanties along the 23 kilometers of river bank in Jakarta cost the city administration Rp 1 trillion (US$434,782,000).

Almost all the buildings in the Puncak area belong to rich people who have their permanent residences in Jakarta. Based on past experience, the demolition of those villas and bungalows is nearly impossible, presumably because the owners enjoy the protection of some powerful people.

When announcing the plan after meeting with President Soeharto at the latter's residence here yesterday, the State Minister of National Development Planning and Chairman of the National Development Planning Board, Ginanjar Kartasasmita, asked reporters the question: "Is there anyone more powerful than the government?"

The obvious answer is, no. Yet, in the past, every time demolition work was started in this area, the officers had to face a strong wall of power. The usual thing that happened was the local authorities pulled out first.

In fact, the policy, which was announced by Ginanjar yesterday, is merely a repetition of an earlier one which the government proclaimed in 1983, when President Soeharto signed a decree to proclaim the mountain resort a watershed for rivers flowing through the capital city.

Despite the decree, more and more building permits were issued by the local administrators for new bungalows, although the Directorate General of Agrarian Affairs of the Ministry of Home Affairs had declared the Puncak area to be overexploited, particularly in the matter of licensed land use.

Now with more, and increasingly devastating, floods hitting Jakarta the authorities have realized that they must act now or never, because the most recent disaster threatened the most important parts of the city.

We sincerely hope that the government is serious this time. However, it also has to take into account the fact that floods here are not only caused by the water pouring down from Puncak They are also due to the diminishing size of the water catchments in the city itself.

The government should stop issuing building permits for construction in open areas in Puncak and the capital itself and revoke licenses which have not been used to ensure the safety of Jakartans.