A

special team formed by the Bali Legislative Council recommended four different scenarios that the Bali administration could implement to obtain a portion of revenue generated by Ngurah Rai International Airport, a facility that processes more than 2 million foreign visitors and generates trillions of rupiah in revenue every year.

“As agreed at our internal plenary meeting last week, we will recommend the scenario to the governor. We will send the recommendation letter soon. We hope the governor can choose the best scenario to be implemented,” the special committee’s secretary Ngakan Samudra said on Wednesday.

The committee was actually established to draft the provincial bylaw on tourism. However, during the drafting process the committee’s members agreed that they also needed to formulate a revenue-sharing mechanism for several state-owned enterprises, the profits of which have been increased significantly by tourism.

These state-owned enterprises are located in Bali but are controlled directly by the central government. Their revenues go to central government coffers, instead of to the provincial treasury.

Among these enterprises are Ngurah Rai airport, Benoa ferry harbor, and Bali Tourism Development Corporation (BTDC), which manages the luxurious tourism enclave of Nusa Dua.

For years, the revenue-sharing issue has become thorny and political as the provincial administration tries to push enterprises to allocate a portion of their revenues for the provincial budget, with the enterprises generally refusing to make the contributions, claiming that they have no authority to do so.

In the first scenario, the provincial administration would impose an additional levy of US$1 for each foreign visitor arriving at the airport. The airport authority would be asked to cooperate in organizing the collection of the levy by providing the facilities to do so inside the arrival terminal. If the airport refused to cooperate, the provincial administration would establish such facilities in the airport.

“This is the simplest scenario that can be implemented in the near future. With this scenario, we will get at least Rp 27 billion per year. We assume that foreign tourist arrivals will be around 2.7 million people per year,” Samudra said, adding that if the airport authority agrees with the scenario, the legislative council could draft legislation to legalize the plan.

In the second scenario, the provincial administration would impose a mandatory tourism attractions’ levy to foreign visitors upon their arrival in the airport. The levy would entitle tourists free entry to all tourism
attractions in Bali.

 “Unfortunately, we realized that this scenario would trigger protests from the management of tourism attractions,” he added.

The third scenario was a long-term one, involving the revision of the 2004 Law on Financial Balance. The law has provided a revenue-sharing mechanism between the central and regional administrations. The mechanism, however, covers only regions with the mining industry.

The last scenario involves tracking down the airport’s land ownership. “We suspect that the airport has used some assets belonging to the provincial administration. If we can find it, we will ask the airport management to pay for the land. We could also convert the land into shares of the company that owns the airport,”

Samudra said the airport generated trillions of rupiah per year from Visa on Arrival only.

“It is simply not fair that Bali doesn’t get anything,”

The Bali administration spokesperson I Ketut Teneng said that the governor had not received the legislative recommendation officially. However, he said that the administration would seriously consider the four scenarios.

“Bali Governor Made Mangku Pastika has been made aware of the issue and the airport’s contribution is actually needed to support the local development agenda,” he said.