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  Channel NewsAsia 16 Feb 07
Indonesia VP blames officials for flooding

JAKARTA : Indonesian leaders must bear responsibility for floods which inundated the capital and other recent disasters to hit the country, Vice President Jusuf Kalla told AFP in an interview. Jakarta is still struggling to clear up the mess from floods earlier this month which killed 85 people and forced half a million others to flee their homes.

While climate change was partly to blame, Kalla said, Jakarta governor Sutiyoso and other officials should take responsibility for the devastation because of over-building which had not been accompanied by improved drainage.

"The richer people are, the more villas they build. So the mountains are full of villas. The green areas, including the rivers, are getting smaller and it is not balanced with a proper drainage system," he said.

"Mr Sutiyoso must also be responsible for what has happened, be that good or bad," Kalla said in an interview at the presidential palace. "But on the other hand the national government must also be held responsible."

Sutiyoso has said the disaster was a "cyclical natural phenomenon" and that neighbouring regions also had to be involved in flood prevention efforts. But critics have accused his administration of dragging its feet in taking steps to protect the capital, such as the delayed building of another flood canal.

A recent construction boom has seen shopping malls, tower blocks and villas built over traditional drainage areas in Jakarta, which is partly below sea level. Satellite photographs chart the shrinking areas of vegetation and ever-expanding urban sprawl in Jakarta over the past 30 years.

Kalla said a joint effort by the city and authorities in adjoining areas would reduce the impact of the annual floods. "It is hoped that in two years, even though rains fall very hard, the flooding will not be as bad as it is now," Kalla said.

Construction projects have reduced the ability of the ground to absorb water and will now have to include flood prevention measures. "Now I have made it obligatory to plant trees, build water drainage tanks and water ponds," he said.

In Jakarta, Kalla said canals built by former Dutch colonists in the 1920s would be repaired and new ones built to improve drainage. An early warning system is already in place, but Kalla many residents were so used to the annual floods that they only take it seriously when the waters start lapping at their doors.

"The water is already like that and they still stay in their homes. They do not want to leave because they fear for their possessions," he said.

But in the case of a "mud volcano" which since May has swallowed several villages and left more than 15,000 people homeless in East Java, Kalla laid the blame entirely on the company drilling for gas in the area, PT Lapindo Brantas.

"The government's position is that the one responsible (for the mud flow) remains the drilling company," Kalla said. Lapindo and top welfare minister Aburizal Bakrie, whose family controls the company through the Bakrie Group, blamed the massive mud flow on an earthquake two days earlier.

But a study by British scientists published last month found the mud flow was most probably caused by drilling. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has already ordered Lapindo to pay 3.8 trillion rupiah (420 million dollars) in compensation and costs related to the disaster.

The mud continues to flow and has forced the closure of a nearby highway. It is also threatening to submerge a key railway line which is due to be rerouted away from the danger zone. - AFP /dt
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