TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Ahok goes on with 'dubious' hospital plan
Despite a report from the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) saying the land purchase is superfluous, the Jakarta administration is going forward with its plan to build a cancer hospital on a 3
Change Size
Despite a report from the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) saying the land purchase is superfluous, the Jakarta administration is going forward with its plan to build a cancer hospital on a 3.7-hectare plot of land adjacent to the existing Sumber Waras Hospital in West Jakarta.
In the BPK's audit of the city administration's 2014 financial report, the audit included a report on the city's Rp 775.69 billion (US$55 million) purchase of the land. The BPK claimed the price was inflated and said the land should have been purchased for the same taxable value of property (NJOP) as the surrounding buildings. The land, the agency report said, could have been bought for Rp 564.35 billion, which would have saved the city budget Rp 191 billion.
Governor Basuki 'Ahok' Tjahaja Purnama said that the city administration would not turn back and instead would build a cancer hospital on the land.
'We have already made the transaction to purchase the land. There is no way that we can turn back,' Ahok told reporters at City Hall recently.
He went on to say that the city administration refused to refund the purchase, while the BPK would also refuse to retract its report regarding the purchase. Thus, he said, both the city administration and the BPK would continue on their own ways.
Ahok said that if legal problems regarding the hospital were to emerge in the future, the city administration would hand over legal procedures to the relevant institutions. However, he said, if the BPK was proven to have been at fault, the city administration would sue the audit agency.
'We will make sure to sue the BPK if they are wrong. We will report them to the KPK [Corruption Eradication Commission] if we have to,' he said.
Responding to the BPK's report, the City Council had formed a special committee to investigate it and the committee has inspected the land at the Sumber Waras Hospital.
Special committee chairman Triwisaksana said during the inspection the members found several dubious actions that had been undertaken by the city administration and added that there was a discrepancy over the exact location of the purchased land.
Triwisaksana said the City Council agreed to purchase a plot of land on Jl. Kyai Tapa, a main road in the area, while the one purchased by the city administration did not directly side with the road.
'The city administration bought land that does not have direct access to Jl. Kyai Tapa, but to a smaller road, Jl. Tomang Utara,' he said.
Triwisaksana was concerned that to access Jl. Kyai Tapa the future cancer hospital would have to use the other side of a plot of land owned by Sumber Waras, but that land was now in dispute.
'If the access is blocked, we do not have access to the main road,' he said.
Triwisaksana said that the fact that the land was not on Jl. Kyai Tapa also affected the NJOP value of the land.
He questioned the intention of the city administration to buy the land hastily, even though it could not be used right away.
'The Jakarta governor should explain why he must buy the land in 2014, while the land can only be used in two years,' he said.
Sumber Waras Hospital director Abraham Tedjanegara told reporters and the special committee members that the management sold half of the hospital's plot of land to the city administration while it was still using the other half for hospital operations. 'We need two years to transfer the facilities and the operations to the other side of the land,' he said.
Abraham said Ahok was the one who initially offered to buy the land. 'We previously wanted to sell the land to a developer. However, as the zoning could not be changed, we agreed to sell it to the city administration,' he said.
He went on to say that the land was sold with the NJOP price of Rp 20 million per square meter last year while the NJOP of the land in 2013 was only Rp 12 million per square meter. The Sumber Waras Health Foundation has been in dispute for years with the Candra Naya social organization about the other half of the land.
________________________________________
To receive comprehensive and earlier access to The Jakarta Post print edition, please subscribe to our epaper through iOS' iTunes, Android's Google Play, Blackberry World or Microsoft's Windows Store. Subscription includes free daily editions of The Nation, The Star Malaysia, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Asia News.
For print subscription, please contact our call center at (+6221) 5360014 or subscription@thejakartapost.com
