C

all me cynical, but I strongly feel that some decision makers in both the Jakarta and national governments who are associated with certain political parties have ulterior motives for pushing through the development of the new Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) and the Jakarta monorail.

There will be legislative and presidential elections next year, and political parties need to raise a large sum of money so they can fill giant billboards and TV screens in order for people to become familiar with the faces of their candidates.

Yes, I would love to take the MRT to go to my baseball practice in Senayan. Traffic is getting crazier by the day and it can take over an hour for me to get there during weekdays.

It is true that this new way of transportation is quite a nifty project and can help put Jakarta back on the map. It is indeed a public embarrassment for the Jakarta government, the respected capital of middle income Indonesia, because when it comes to public transportation the city lags far behind cities such as Bangkok and Singapore.

The MRT would be able to transport us from one place to another more quickly and comfortably at the same time, while causing less pollution. On top of that, we could also hope that the new public transportation system would be able to put the brakes on the number of new cars flooding the streets of Jakarta. But maybe it is just wishful thinking since big car manufacturers are already striking back by introducing low cost cars into the market.

What saddens me is that around the same time of the ground breaking MRT development and the launch of the monorail, there were reports of big name politicians who allegedly stole money from the nation.

What bothered me even more was that the alleged embezzlers were all smiling and waving to the public.

The media said that the budget for building the MRT would reach Rp15.5 trillion and the monorail US$900 million-$1.5 billion. This concerns me because I believe strongly that some corruptors would also steal part of the MRT funds.

How much would really be needed to build the MRT and monorail if there was no corruption involved? Maybe it would only cost 80, 70 or even 60 percent of the currently budgeted amounts. Have the budgets been marked up? Or, will it be marked up in two or three years'€™ time? The corruptors will probably say that inflation has driven prices of cement and steel up so high to justify their requests for a lot more budgetary allocations.

Corruptors will not learn to stop unless they are severely punished, but I just do not understand why they constantly receive lenient sentences. However, once they get caught, they always seem to manage a last ditch attempt at biting their captors and escape to the nice warmth of their château-like homes after going through their much reduced sentences.

For me the nicer term for corruption is '€œcreative accounting'€. It does not sound all too bad now, does it? Wrong. No matter how you sugarcoat your actions, the result and damage caused will not change for the better. After all, we stopped checking under the bed for monsters when we found out they were inside us.

When I eventually take a ride on the MRT and the monorail to my baseball practice I will be thinking that some public officials are riding their imported luxury gas guzzling cars that they bought using money siphoned from the MRT and monorail budget. Nice.

The writer is a student at Jakarta International Multicultural School