Acting Governor Of DKI Must Evaluate Anies' Program On Handling Jakarta Floods

The elected Governor of DKI Jakarta, Heru Budi Hartono at City Hall (Photo via Facebook Anies Baswedan)

City planning observer from Trisakti University, Yayat Supriatna, assessed that the elected Governor of DKI Jakarta, Heru Budi Hartono, had the main task at the beginning of his tenure, to overcome the flooding that began to hit again during the current rainy season.

When he replaced the Governor of DKI Jakarta Anies Baswedan later, Heru was said to have had to evaluate flood management programs during Anies' five-year tenure.

"In order not to become a burden for the next governor, it is better to evaluate (the flood management program). So, the task of the Governor is to evaluate what (Anies has been doing so far)," Yayat told reporters, Friday, October 14.

In that evaluation, Heru was able to see which programs were considered successful or were not successful in tackling floods. Thus, the use of the APBD can be optimized for more realistic results.

As with information released by BMKG, rainfall in Jakarta will occur with high intensity. Meanwhile, Yayat saw that the Jakarta flood management system during Anies' tenure was obsolete.

So, one of the most effective flood control efforts is to normalize the river, namely the return of the river width that stretches across Jakarta so that it can accommodate more water flow, both from upstream and local rain.

In the normalization project, the DKI Provincial Government is tasked with land acquisition for residents along the river, while the central government, in this case the Ministry of PUPR, is carrying out construction on normalization work.

The DKI Provincial Government has indeed budgeted for land acquisition costs. But the problem is, until now the land acquisition process has not been completed.

Considering that Heru is close to Jokowi because he has been the Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Yayat views that the normalization project can be realized more quickly.

"It seems that communication with the President is more fluid. Now how is this change fully supported by the Ministry of PUPR. That means, whether it is normalized or not, PJ has a commitment to make a decision to execute it," explained Yayat.