An article in The Jakarta Post (Aug. 20) mentioned a report from the World Bank that Indonesia suffered massive economic losses of $6.3 billions in 2006 due to poor sanitation. This figure is equal to Rp 56 trillion, a fantastic sum for Indonesia that has not yet fully recovered from economic crisis.

In reality, the loss did not occur only in 2006. It recurs nearly every year. The figures showed no substantial difference, and they were even bigger in previous years as the sanitation condition was a lot poorer. These all indicate that we have paid minimum attention to sanitation.

As we can see so far, hardly has the word 'sanitation' been mentioned in the Government's Work Plan (RKP). No wonder, this results in minimum budget allocation for sanitation development.

From several brochures of sanitation exhibition, I was informed that this year's budget for the sanitation sector was only Rp 500 billion, while the real need for sanitation improvement reached Rp 9 trillion. So what can we expect from this budget of only 0.006 percent? Undeniably, the sanitation issue will be harder to address.

This is certainly an irony. In fact, environmental sanitation plays strategic roles in public health. Analogous to a river, sanitation is the upper reach. Various diseases spring from poor environmental sanitation, such as diarrhea, cholera and typhoid.

From the same brochures as mentioned previously, in general an average of 100,000 children die of cancer annually in Indonesia. Worldwide, diarrhea is the highest infant killer. Infantile death because of diarrhea in Indonesia ranks the second highest next to malnutrition. Death because of malnutrition is even inseparable from diarrhea attacks. Therefore, sanitation improvement will increase the level of public health and, in turn, it will generate enormous economic benefits.

If only the World Bank had not reported through the mass media, this fact would never have been revealed. And we stay undisturbed while level of public health is deteriorating because of poor sanitation.

How good it would be if we could prevent the annual loss of Rp. 56 trillion caused by poor sanitation. We then doubt the government's attention, both at national and regional levels, to sanitation improvement. What have they done to deal with the issue? Do we have to shout at our might to make them more concerned about the issue?

ASWIN

Bandung

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