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House to expedite new bill on Jakarta status
The House of Representatives' Legislative Body (Baleg) will start the deliberations for the Jakarta special status bill in the coming weeks with five ministers of President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's administration.
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People gather in the park of the National Monument (Monas) in Jakarta on Aug. 6, 2023. (AFP/Yasuyoshi Chiba)
T
he House of Representatives is working to speed up deliberations on the Jakarta special designation bill, with experts slamming some provisions in the bill as being heavily influenced by outgoing President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s political interests.
The bill seeks to redefine Jakarta’s standing into an autonomous province within an expansive agglomeration urban region after the government relocates the country’s capital to Nusantara in East Kalimantan by August.
During a plenary session on Tuesday, House deputy speaker Sufmi Dasco Ahmad of the Gerindra Party said the legislature would kickstart a deliberation on the bill in the ongoing sitting period. The House Legislation Body (Baleg) had been assigned to discuss it with the government.
The bill, drafted by lawmakers of House Commission II overseeing home affairs, was approved as the House’s initiative bill in December. House members would need to discuss the bill with the government before it gets passed in a House vote during a plenary session.
In a letter sent to the House, the President assigned five ministers for the bill’s deliberations: Home Minister Tito Karnavian, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, National Development Planning (Bappenas) Minister Suharso Monoarfa, Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform Minister Abdullah Azwar Anas and Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly.
Baleg was planning to start deliberating the bill next Wednesday, said the body deputy chair Achmad Baidowi of the United Development Party (PPP) on Thursday.
Baleg chairman Supratman Andi Atgas of the Gerindra Party argued that Jakarta's status as the national capital should have expired by Feb. 15, as mandated in the Nusantara Capital City (IKN) Law that regulates the relocation of the national capital to Nusantara.
