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Jakarta Post

Compensation payment not yet done

A day before the filling-in of Jatigede Dam in Sumedang regency, West Java, the government has yet to finalize cash assistance payments for the affected families

Arya Dipa (The Jakarta Post)
Bandung
Mon, August 31, 2015

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Compensation payment not yet done

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day before the filling-in of Jatigede Dam in Sumedang regency, West Java, the government has yet to finalize cash assistance payments for the affected families.

President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo is reportedly scheduled to witness the filling of the dam on Monday.

Kesmawati, 35, of Jemah village, Darmaraja district, urged the government to make sure her payment would be properly transferred as she had completed all the required documents to receive cash assistance of around Rp 29 million (US$2,071).

'€œI submitted the documents on July 27, 2015, but up to now I have heard nothing about it,'€ said the mother of one child when contacted by phone on Sunday.

Kesmawati and her 76-year-old mother Juriah have remained at their house because they could not afford to buy another plot of land in nearby Jatinunggal.

She said there were 16 families in her village, the first village of 26 subdistricts used for the dam, which had not yet been given cash assistance.

With regards to the flooding of the dam, head of the Cimanuk Cisanggarung River management center Trisasongko Widianto said that the flooding of Jemah village in Jatigede district would need 12 days to be completed.

Meanwhile, West Java provincial administration secretary Iwa Karniwa assured those concerned that the flooding of the dam could proceed from Monday.

He said all social problems in the flooding area would be handled by the Sumedang regency administration.

'€œWe will give support through amended budgets conducted in stages,'€ Iwa said.

Chairman of the payment facilitation team, Dede Hermasah, said that so far only 75.41 percent of the 10,924 affected families eligible for compensation had received payment.

He said the team would continue to process compensation applications until the end of August, at which point his team'€™s operations would temporarily cease.

'€œWe will be back to work from Oct. 1-31,'€ Dede said, assuring those concerned that all the payments would be finalized as scheduled.

Dede, however, said that the flooding could incite serious problems as some 400 people still insisted on staying in Cipaku subdistrict.

Most of the families received compensation and had agreed to relocate when construction of the dam began in the early 1980s. However, the majority of families then returned over the course of the following decade after learning that the project had stalled as a result of funding issues and other setbacks.

The dam, set to be the country'€™s second-largest, is considered crucial to ensuring Indonesia'€™s food security. The dam is being built on 4,891 hectares of land covering 26 subdistricts over five districts in West Java.

It will have the capacity to retain 979 million cubic meters of water to irrigate some 90,000 hectares of rice fields in Sumedang, Indramayu and Cirebon regencies.

The dam will also be able to supply drinking water at a rate of 3,500 liters per second and generate 110 megawatts of electricity.

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