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Council rejects budget of Rp 4.7 billion for Payung Island
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An aerial view of Thousand Islands, north of Jakarta. The City Council rejected a budget proposal for Payung Island in the Thousand Islands regency on Nov. 23, 2017. (Shutterstock/File)
T
he Jakarta Council rejected a budget proposal for Payung Island in the Thousand Islands regency on Thursday because they consider the island a tourism spot.
“Don’t allocate a budget for Payung Island. That is a tourism island and the fund might be used to develop villas. People can even drive cars there,” said Bestari Barus, a member of the council’s Commission D that oversees spatial plan and public works, as quoted by kompas.com.
He added that the island also did not have many residents.
The Water Management Agency allocated Rp 4.7 billion (US$348,000) for the island to establish reverse osmosis (RO) or water purification technology. The ROs are set to be built on eight islands.
Another reason was that tourism on the island had been developed by private parties and the planned ROs would benefit them instead of residents.
Meanwhile, the agency’s head, Teguh Hendrawan, said the fund for the island was smaller compared to others and disagreed with Barus’ rejection of the budget.
Commission D head Iman Satria then announced that the RO budget for Payung Island would be removed and transferred to another program.
“We agreed that the budget for Payung Island would be removed,” Iman said. (wnd)
