JAKARTA - DKI Jakarta Governor Pramono Anung responded to criticism from the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH) who assessed that the handling of floods in the capital city was still repeating the old pattern and based on a short-term technical approach.
Pramono said the criticism from LBH Jakarta was part of a reasonable public control of regional government policies. He assessed that criticism was necessary so that the government did not work in a closed space.
"Indeed, if LBH friends do not criticize it, I think it is less, so I really want to be criticized too," said Pramono at the DKI Jakarta City Hall, Central Jakarta, Friday, January 23.
Regarding the allegation that the DKI Provincial Government is repeating old policies, Pramono dismissed the assumption. He stated that the normalization of a number of major rivers in Jakarta has never been fully implemented.
"But the principle is this, in fact I am not repeating old things, including for the normalization of Ciliwung, the normalization of Krukut, the normalization of Kali Cakung Lama has never been done," said Pramono.
According to Pramono, the normalization of rivers requires a large budget and has a direct implication on people who live on the banks of rivers. He admitted that the policy was not popular because it involved the relocation of residents and the provision of replacement housing.
"This requires quite a high cost, and I will do it and this is definitely not popular because of what? We have to move people, we have to prepare apartments and so on and of course later in the field, whether you like it or not, there must be a hint. So that way it's okay to be criticized, we will still handle it," explained Pramono.
Meanwhile, regarding the use of weather modification, which was also criticized by LBH Jakarta, Pramono emphasized that the step was temporary and was taken in response to extreme weather conditions.
"What we deal with with this weather modification is indeed short-term because this weather is given, not us who make it. This extreme weather is what nature gives so that we deal with it," he said.
Previously, LBH Jakarta assessed that the Governor of DKI Jakarta Pramono had repeated the old pattern of his predecessors by making rainfall the main cause of the recurring floods in the capital. This kind of narrative is considered misleading because it closes its eyes to the fundamental problems that have been allowed to happen.
LBH Jakarta emphasized that flooding is not solely caused by rain, but is an accumulation of political decisions that consciously allow the destruction of urban ecological systems.
Land function conversion, water space narrowing, and expansion of development that is not environmentally aware are the main factors that exacerbate the risk of flooding in Jakarta.
Currently, almost 90 percent of Jakarta's area is covered by buildings. This condition causes the soil to be paved due to massive concrete and asphalt. As a result, the soil's ability to absorb water decreases drastically.
LBH Jakarta noted that the absorption capacity of land in Jakarta is now only around 10 percent, so that about 90 percent of rainwater that falls directly becomes runoff on the surface. This situation makes Jakarta very vulnerable to flooding, even during local-scale rain.
In this context, LBH Jakarta considers handling floods through weather modification as a wrong approach from its basic logic. Rain is part of the natural cycle that is essential for the survival of land creatures.
Interventions against rain through weather modification, if carried out continuously, have the potential to create new environmental problems in the long term, including disruption of soil fertility and the availability of groundwater sources.
Dependence on short-term technical solutions such as weather modification is considered only to cover the failure of structural policy in managing space and the environment. So far, Jakarta's flood management has been stuck on a narrow and reactive technocratic approach.
In fact, according to LBH Jakarta, flooding is a spatial and environmental crisis that is produced by long-term development policies. Unfortunately, structural policies that touch the root of the problem are absent.
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