I refer to the page one report in the Oct. 11 edition of The Jakarta Post on Jakarta’s unprecedented traffic congestion. The report initially makes the comment that “there is no solution to this problem; either around the corner or on the horizon.” Later on in the very same report, however, it is noted that
“loose consumer credit and fuel subsidies are boosting car ownership by 10-15 percent a year”.
It is simply not the case that there is no solution to Jakarta’s unprecedented traffic congestion. There are, in fact, solutions to this problem which, no doubt involve, in part, abolishing petrol subsidies and tightening consumer credit, not to mention building additional and better roads and improving zoning guidelines.
Jakarta’s traffic congestion, however, is not an isolated problem that can be addressed in a piecemeal fashion. Its contributing causes are to be found in the same factors that result in inadequate and unreliable electricity supply in many parts of Indonesia, including, increasingly, in Jakarta.
The same may be said for the perennial flooding that Jakarta experiences every year and, more generally, the problem of pollution in Indonesia.
The root causes of all these problems are sub-optimal decision and policy making at all levels of the Indonesian government, where the emphasis is on short term political gain and protection of vested interests with a totally corrosive overlay of endemic corruption.
The unhealthy convergence of short term political gain, protection of vested interests and corruption, with its end result of sub-optimal policy making, is particularly apparent in Indonesia’s long standing electricity, petrol and other basic commodity subsidies, which are a major drag on the State budget and wholly indefensible from an economic perspective, but which the Indonesian government can never bring itself to do anything about.
It would be good to think that the government’s pervasive inaction on subsidies was motivated by concern for the well-being of the poor, but that of course would be totally naïve.
So let’s be clear, forthright and honest about Jakarta’s (not to say Indonesia’s) myriad problems of traffic congestion, insufficient electricity supply, flooding and pollution, to name just a few. These are not unfathomable problems without practical solutions to deal with them.
Rather, they are entirely solvable problems. What is lacking is sufficient political will, at every level of government in Indonesia, to take the hard decisions that are necessary in a way that is more or less fair to everyone, and without regard to vested interests and personal gain.
Just highlighting the existence of the Jakarta’s problems with traffic congestion and the burdens that this places on the city’s long suffering residents is hardly front page news, especially given that every Jakarta resident is only too well aware of the situation. At the same time, taking an implicitly defeatist attitude and suggesting, incorrectly, there is no solution to the problem does little or nothing to advance the essential debate on how to overcome the lack of political will in Indonesia, which is the real source of this and many other problems.
The Post can make better use of its valuable front page.
William A. Sullivan
Jakarta
