Bantar Gebang tender delayed again

Mustaqim Adamrah ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Thu, 07/03/2008 10:38 AM  |  City

Yet another delay is holding up plans for a public tender of Bantar Gebang landfill's waste management, initially scheduled for the end of April.

City Secretary Muhayat said Wednesday the Jakarta bureau of capital management and regional monetary management (BPM-PKUD) was still undecided as to whether the future public tender would be its responsibility.

"BPM-PKUD believes the public tender will become its responsibility if it is a matter of investment, while it's the Jakarta sanitation agency's responsibility if the public tender is merely services procurement, in accordance to a 2003 presidential decree," he said at City Hall.

The decree stipulates a project worth more than Rp 50 million (US$5,423) must be offered in a public bidding.

"BPM-PKUD is still in doubt as to whether the public tender is another form of investment and on what legal grounds it will be held," he said.

Muhayat said Sukri Bey, assistant to the city secretary for financial affairs, was currently considering opinions from the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) over the public tender.

A plethora of waste, combined with obsolete waste management technology, has forced the administration to improve the management of the Bantar Gebang landfill in Bekasi, east of Jakarta.

After landfills in Kapuk, North Jakarta, and Kamal, West Jakarta, were closed down, the amount of waste processed at Bantar Gebang has increased from 3,000 tons per day to between 4,500 and 5,000 tons per day.

The administration expects to implement a more advanced waste-processing technology to the site, which is currently just a landfill, to be able to process up to 6,000 tons of waste daily.

The project is estimated to cost Rp 140 billion per 1,000 tons of capacity added for daily waste, and the administration will have to acquire 2.3 hectares of land next to the 108-hectare site.

The land acquisition and new technology, as well as a fee for every ton of waste processed, is part of the administration's planned public tender.

The tender was first pushed back from the end of April to the end of July for a pre-feasibility study that deputy sanitation agency head Jornal Siahaan said would result in appropriate technology being recommended.

Muhayat said this latest delay meant it was unclear when the tender would finally be held.

At least eight overseas investors have expressed interest in the project, and will partner with a local company if successful.

Sanitation agency head Eko Bharuna Subroto said the investors were from Japan, Korea, Australia and Singapore, and said the winning contract would run for 15 years, with a reassessment every five years.

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved.