‘People complain mostly about the long walk in Jakabaring’

Palembang has grabbed the region’s attention by pulling off a fabulous Games opening ceremony for the 26th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games. But the organization of the biennial games has been criticized for a lack of preparation causing many delays and shifts in schedule. Among other thing arising during the Games is the transportation issue, which has caused the city serious problems. South Sumatra Governor Alex Noerdin shared his thoughts on the ups and downs of the Games with The Jakarta Post’s Niken Prathivi at Jakabaring Sports City in Palembang on Wednesday. Here are excerpts.

Question: The Games have finally begun. How is the progress so far?

Answer: So far, so good. There have been shortcomings here and there, but they aren’t critical.  We have received one or two complaints, but as we have been praised by thousands of people then I think the Games have been run well enough.

Transportation has been a real challenge for public, media and even for athletes and officials, especially in commuting between venues in the city and Jakabaring. How are you dealing with this?

Outside the Jakabaring complex, we have provided a number of Trans Musi buses that can take people from the city and some venues in the downtown area to the complex, and vice versa. We also have several buses, courtesy of the Transportation Ministry and Blue Bird taxis (with meters) are also available.

We have a bottle neck problem that causes traffic jams. As you can see the main road from the (Sutan Mahmud Badaruddin) airport has three lanes each way, while after Ampera Bridge we only have two lanes each, so we have tailbacks that spread to some streets in the city. But thousands of people are coming to the town … for instance the number of media people covering the Palembang events has reached at least 2,000.

In the Jakabaring complex, we have provided eco-friendly transportation like liquid petroleum-fueled buses, rickshaws and bicycles for all, while scooters and golf carts are exclusively for athletes and officials. But the fact is now we have lost most of the bicycles, from more than 400 units at the beginning of the Games, we are down to about 100 now. I know that the bicycles must have been taken from the complex, but what can I do?

The complex is an eco-friendly environment that bars fossil fuel vehicles entering the site. This was let slip in the second day of the Games but we fixed that on the third day.

We have tightened security at the gates to avoid further trouble.

The wellbeing, including transportation, of athletes and officials is our top priority.

You must have received lots of complaints from locals?

Well, mostly, they complain about the long walk inside the Jakabaring … our people are not used of walking that far … but, again, we have provided the eco-friendly vehicles as I previously said.

After the Games, what will you do with the Jakabaring facilities?

We will use the facility as a national sports development center. As the President (Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono) has requested, we will start building an international-level sports university in 2012 that will open for enrollment by the end of 2013. We already have a sports science center, which is one of the requirements in building a sports university.

The Games uphold a spirit of transparency. How have Palembang’s organizers made preparations for auditing in the future?

We certainly support it. Since the beginning of this project, we have followed all rules. We are grateful that the President has issued a presidential regulation to legalize a direct appointment mechanism. Trust me, we are more than prepared for the audit, because we ourselves will have the problems if we don’t get this right.

Any words for the Indonesian athletes competing in the Games?

We have worked really hard, for at least the last 11 months, and the Jakabaring Sports City is ready for all athletes. In return, we expect our athletes to win more gold medals to make Indonesia the overall champions.