Meet Khofifah, Deputy Minister Fahri Hamzah Discusses Renovation Of 2 Million Houses

Deputy Minister of Housing and Settlement Areas Fahri Hamzah met with the Governor of East Java Khofifah Indar Parawansa at the Grahadi State Building, Surabaya, Friday night, July 4 to discuss the renovation program for two million houses.

Fahri said that his visit to East Java was part of the national agenda to collect data and compile a map of the need for renovation of uninhabitable houses throughout Indonesia, including the construction of vertical houses in urban areas.

"His data (Khofifah) already exists, I think we just have to synchronize it. Once the money starts to be channeled, of course, through the mechanisms regulated in existing government regulations," said Fahri.

The renovation program of two million houses per year is one of the main targets of the central government in improving the quality of housing for low-income people, especially those living in slum areas or dense areas.

According to Fahri, accuracy and completeness of data are important requirements so that the implementation of the program can run on target. Therefore, the involvement of local governments, including Governor Khofifah, is a determining factor in the success of the program.

"Data collection is a very important stage, and in East Java I think it's arguably the fastest and most complete data because of the experience I said earlier," he said.

Fahri assessed that Khofifah had a long experience in government which made the data collection system in East Java relatively better than other provinces.

He also highlighted the large number of local governments to the RT level in East Java which is an advantage in terms of range and speed of data collection.

"The number of local governments in East Java is among the most in Indonesia. This makes the data reach very wide and accurate, even up to the RT level," he said.

During the meeting, Fahri also discussed plans to develop coastal areas, especially related to the renovation of fishing settlement areas which were considered to need special attention from the central government.

He said the implementation of the program in coastal areas would involve coordination across ministries, especially the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries.

"So we discussed earlier how so that technically in this area it can run more massively," said Fahri.

According to him, the scale and workload in this program is very large, so it requires complete readiness from local governments to support its implementation.

The central government hopes that the renovation of houses and the construction of vertical houses in urban areas will not only reduce slum areas, but also encourage land efficiency, especially in densely populated areas such as Surabaya, Sidoarjo, and its surroundings.

In addition, the government is also mapping areas that can be prioritized based on the urgency of needs, geographical conditions, and adequate land availability.