T

he Presidential Work Unit for Development Monitoring and Control (UKP4) has given the Jakarta administration a failing grade in its implementation of 17 plans of action designed to ease Jakarta’s worsening traffic.

UKP4 head Kuntoro Mangkusubroto attributed the failure to poor coordination and lack of commitment from city agencies.

“If you ask me, the progress in the 17 plans, I will have to say that it is bad news ... and why is it so hard to put them into action? The root of the problem is that there’s no coordination at all,” Kuntoro said at a discussion evaluating the action plans on Thursday.

Kuntoro said city officials did not seem to have a grasp of the gravity of the situation.

“Higher ranking officials don’t really understand the problem while lower ranking officials understand the problem but hesitate to tell the truth,” he said.

In September 2010 upon an order from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, UKP4 came up with 17 plans to help deal with Jakarta’s traffic.

The plans included the implementation of an electronic road pricing system (ERP), the review of parking bylaws, the improvement of the railway network, the opening of more Transjakarta Busway corridors, the clearing of Transjakarta exclusive lanes of private cars and expediting the construction of the Mass Rapid Transportation project.

In implementing the plans, the Jakarta administration needed to collaborate with the Transportation Ministry, the Public Works Ministry and the local administrations of Banten and West Java.

Vice President Boediono tasked UKP4 to monitor the progress of the implementation.

Kuntoro said that in past months there had been a growing lack of commitment from all parties in the implementation of the measures to alleviate the city’s traffic woes.

In December of last year, 54 percent of the plans had been implemented, with a level of achievement of more than 80 percent.

“But, then there was a significant decline, with only 9 percent of the plans implemented in February. And it got worse, in April only 2 percent of the plans were implemented and reported to us,” Kuntoro said.

Kuntoro also said Jakarta scored the worst in its efforts at imple-mentation compared to other institutions.

Jakarta Transportation Agency head Udar Pristono said the city had done the best it could, including opening new busway routes, finalizing the ERP system and increasing the capacity of infrastructure.

“We have implemented all the strategies. If we don’t get maximum results, we will take it as a lesson learned,” he said.