Giant Sea Wall Is Considered Not To Solve The Problem Of The Decreased Face Of The Ground, This Is The Explanation

Illustration infrastructure (Photo: dock. Antara)

JAKARTA - Director of the Rujak Center for Urban Studies, Elisa Sutanudjaja, assessed that the construction of a giant sea embankment or Giant Sea Wall is not a solution to solve the land subsidence problem on the Jakarta Coast and the North Coast (Pantura) area of Java.

According to Elisa, the government only uses the reason for the problem to build a big project with a jumbo budget. However, it also does not solve the existing problems.

"Regarding the relocation of the capital city or land subsidence, it is always used repeatedly as an excuse to move the capital city, the reason for making projects is very large and expensive, such as sea embankments, coastal embankments or some call it Giant Sea Wall," said Elisa in a virtual discussion on the Impact of Giant Sea Wall (GSW) on the North Java Beach Area, Friday, January 12.

"However, we see that the infrastructure development mechanism in Jakarta does tend to use the reasons for environmental damage as an excuse to make large and expensive projects," he added.

Elisa said that from the era of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY), Joko Widodo (Jokowi) or until the change of president this year, no one knew how to stop the land subsidence.

He considered that the government only focused on developing large projects with a quite fantastic budget, without solving the existing problems as a whole.

"If we see that there are various schemes from the Fauzi Bowo era, from the ministers it is still Djoko Kirmanto to Mr. Basuki, the president from SBY to the president wants to change again, that's a change of name. Whether it's NCICD, update NCIDC or great Garuda," he said.

"But if we read the documents one by one there is none in that scheme about how to stop land subsidence," he continued.

Furthermore, Elisa considers that until now the government has not discussed a solution to stop the land subsidence.

"So, (the government) did not talk about it at all. What they are talking about is how to build embankments, where the pumps need how much it costs, then how much the scheme for financing must be reclamation, how much money to count, make toll roads. But, no one talked about how to stop land subsidence," he said.

Thus, continued Elisa, the government only seems to solve problems for a short period of time and does not yet know the solution for the long term.

"So like a person with cancer, he has lung cancer, he only gets chemotherapy, but he doesn't stop smoking. So, making embankments without solving the problem of why (the surface of the ground) goes down, yes, it's just treating a little. In 20 years or even 10 years we will face the same problem," he concluded.