Use of flood prevention funds 'must be transparent'

JAKARTA (JP): A councilor has called for transparency in the spending of a central government grant of Rp 93 billion to fund the city administration's flood prevention projects this year.

Councilor Lukman Mokoginta from the council's Commission D for development affairs said on Wednesday that the use of the funds should be tightly controlled to allow as much as possible of the money to be used to contain flooding which is expected to hit the capital in the near future.

In the past, he said, funds for this purpose had invariably been misused and the accounts not opened to public scrutiny.

As a result, flood prevention projects were never completed, he added.

"We can see that every year we are hit by floods," Lukman said, giving no further explanation.

"We should therefore leave behind all the (illegal) misuse of flood prevention funds," the councilor said.

Lukman quoted the deputy head of the city's development planning board, Irzal T. Djamal, as saying that the central government through the National Development Planning Board was about to hand over Rp 93 billion to the city administration to fund flood prevention projects.

The Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) has repeatedly warned Jakartans of the possibility of flooding as a result of above average rainfall brought about by the La Nia weather phenomenon.

Data from the city public works agency shows that 40 percent of Jakarta is built on low lying areas and that river channels in the city are extremely narrow.

Last month, Governor Sutiyoso said the administration was facing a shortage of funds to take measures to guard against the possibility of major flooding.

He said the administration would only be able to focus on helping flood victims rather than taking precautionary measures to prevent flooding, which he said could affect up to one-fifth of Jakarta's 10 million population.

According to councilor Lukman, flood prevention projects in the city should be conducted in conjunction with the West Java administration because that is where water catchments which drain into the sea through Jakarta are located. (ind)