Governor Anies Baswedan's Memory Rejects Giant Sea Wall Project As A Solution To Overcome Jakarta Floods

Portrait of the Jakarta Giant Sea Wall project master plan. (Special)

JAKARTA - Efforts to overcome floods in Jakarta are never easy. All kinds of tactics that are carried out often lead to failures. Projects such as the Normalization of the Ciliwung River are considered ineffective. In fact, the government has to displace several villages in Jakarta.

A new strategy has emerged. The Giant Sea Wall (giant Sea Wall) project, his name. Jakarta leader from Fauzi Bowo to Joko Widodo (Jokowi) believes the project made Jakarta free from flooding for up to 1,000 years. However, Anies Baswedan rejected it.

Floods are always a serious problem that haunts Jakarta. The storm of losses is not least behind it. The narrative made a series of DKI Jakarta Governors race to overcome the flood problem.

The era of the government of Fauzi Bowo (Foke), especially. Foke wants Jakarta to start disbursing a lot of funds to disrupt flooding. He also planned a mega project, believes that Sea Dike Plan or later known as 'Giant Sea Wall'. A project that is in accordance with the direction of a consultant from the Netherlands.

The project will make Jakarta look like it has a giant embankment that can accommodate water from 13 rivers. The water stored will be managed into clean water. Therefore, Jakarta is not only able to ward off high tides, but also the Giant Sea Wall is predicted to solve the problem of flooding in Jakarta for up to 1,000 years.

The initiated project is certainly not cheap. The central and regional governments must be prepared to disburse funds up to Rp500 trillion. A number that will not be realized during the Foke administration.

The Foke government has also changed to Jokowi. However, Jokowi is different from Foke. Jokowi not only demeaned one solution to tackle Jakarta's floods. Jokowi prepared many other agendas such as the construction of Green Open Space (RTH) to the Normalization of Ciliwung River to deal with flooding.

The normalization project has also displaced several villages. The result is far from wild. Jokowi's series of agendas continued by Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok) did not make Jakarta free of flooding. As a result, Jokowi began to dedicate the Giant Sea Wall project.

This project was originally called Sea Dike Plandan when Jokowi was governor, its name was changed to 'Giant Sea Wall', a large sea wall for approximately 30 kilometers. Crossing from the coast of Bekasi in eastern Jakarta to the Tangerang coast to the west, 'Giant Sea Wallkon will become the largest embankment in the world and become a water reservoir from 13 rivers that can later be converted into clean water sources.'

The goal: to ward off tides and overcome flooding in Jakarta for the next 1,000 years. When he became governor, Jokowi said that the Giant Sea Wall project was in high demand by the private sector because it was considered business-attaining. The calculation is correct. Because this project was later developed into an integrated project to create 17 artificial islands, on which housing, hotels, business centers, shopping houses and others will be built. Until the end of last year, at least 12 companies recorded will be involved in this project, "explained Rusdi Mathari in their book Busy Calculating Chicken Steps: Collect Reportase (2018).

The execution of the giant Sea Walltak project went smoothly. The new Jakarta number one person, Anies Baswedan, did not give the blessing of the project to run in the era of government from 2017-2022. The former Minister of Education and Culture said the project could not cope with flooding.

This narrative was revealed by Anies because the concept of Giant Sea Wall is not right in Indonesia. It may be that it will be successful in other countries, but in Jakarta the project will be difficult. The construction of the giant embankment is considered to bring many harm, compared to benefits.

Anies argues that the construction of a series of reclamation islands along with giant embankment frills will only make Giant Sea Wallbak giant kobokan. The dirty water from 13 rivers carrying waste will stop at the embankment and cannot be flowed into the high seas. Not to mention the case of coastal communities who will lose their livelihoods.

This condition made him immediately stop the project temporarily in 2018. Anies also began to form a team to re-examine the importance of Giant Sea Wall for the whole of Jakarta. Meanwhile, Anies prefers to strengthen the coastal and river embankments as a solution to control flooding.

After that, President Jokowi only asked the Governor of DKI Jakarta, Heru Budi Hartono, to continue the Giant Sea Wall project. The pressure was carried out right after Anies finished his tenure in 2022.

"We will discuss with Bappenas regarding (Giant Sea Wall) we will also show what needs to be considered so that the giant knockout phenomenon does not occur in Jakarta. Why, because in various countries that have built such a large embankment, it has finally become a giant breakthrough. Water from everywhere to there, while not flowing into the open, closed by a giant embankment, that's where the problem lies," explained Anies Baswedan as quoted by the CNN page, September 28, 2018.