Dompu-Bima Flood Subscription, NTB Provincial Government And Regency Government Are Considered Not Serious In Preventing

NTB - Member of the West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) DPRD Marga Harun assessed that the NTB Provincial Government (Pemprov) together with the Dompu Regency Government (Pemkab) and Bima City were not serious about overcoming the annual flood problem that often hit their territory.

"This flood problem is an annual problem. The effect is disrupting social activities, so it needs serious attention from all parties. All elements must be involved because this is a crucial problem," he said in Mataram, Friday, January 3, as reported by Antara.

He sees that so far there have been massive efforts from the NTB Provincial Government together with district/city governments to overcome or prevent flooding, nothing. Even if there is an effort, it is only partial in the form of providing assistance.

"So if we look at it until now there has been no seriousness of the provincial government and regional governments to overcome this flood problem," said the politician from Dapil VI, Dompu, Bima, and Bima Regencies.

Marga does not deny the problem of flooding, especially in the districts of Dompu, Bima, and Bima City, including other areas in NTB due to damaged forest functions in the local area that were barred due to massive increase.

"This is proven that in a period of five or six years floods are easy to occur. This is quite severe, every rainy season floods will definitely disturb people's homes. The reason is that the forest has been paralyzed due to the massive conversion of land," he explained.

According to him, the frequent flooding has an impact on the disruption of residents' economic activities and the paralysis of public service activities such as broken roads, collapsed bridges, and other impacts.

Therefore, one thing that needs to be done is how to reforestation forest areas. Even though this is not easy, it is not as easy as turning the palm of the hand because it takes a long and long time to restructure the conditions of nature that are already severe.

"This is a tough task, the homework of the elected regional head makes prevention efforts. Even if the current government is not optimal, efforts are needed across local governments, both provincial and district/city, to jointly find a way out to overcome this problem. That's why we urge the Acting Governor and the mayor to take countermeasures as policyholders to make innovations," he said.

In the last few days a number of regencies and cities both on Sumbawa Island and Lombok Island have been hit by floods when entering the rainy season.

BNPB confirmed that a total of 3,766 families were victims of flooding due to the high intensity of rain in the last four days or at least since Thursday 19 December night in Dompu Regency.

The affected victims were residents of Wawonduru Village, Baka Jaya, Matua, Simpasai, Kladai Dua in the administrative area of Woja District. Then in Dompu District in Dorr Bara Village, Mbawo, Monta Baru, to Potu Village, Bada, Karijawa and Bali Village One.

Director of the NTB Environmental Forum (Walhi) Amri Nuryudin said that the flood disaster that hit the Bima and Dompu areas was the impact of the conversion of 30,000 hectares of land in hilly areas into corn fields.

"So, the transfer of tens of thousands of land is the cause of the flood disaster in Bima-Dompu," said Amri in Mataram, Monday (30/12).

According to him, the trigger for massive land conversion started with a local government program called Pijar (Sapi, Corn, and Seaweed) which has been running since 2013.

"This means that the conversion of land functions does not then blame farmers, but countries that have provided space and opportunity for them to manage forests. This Pijar program has gone too far," he said.

From field data collection, Walhi noted that in the last 2023 there were around 200 thousand hectares on a large scale of 2.1 million hectares of NTB, forest areas, changing their function into corn fields. The conversion of land functions occurs massively in the areas of Bima, Dompu, and East Lombok.