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oordinating Economic Minister Hatta Rajasa said it was official on Thursday: A team of seven Cabinet ministers rejected Finance Minister Agus Martowardojo’s proposal to fund the feasibility study of the Sunda Strait Bridge (SSB) project with state money.

Hatta’s announcement appears to have ended months of internal bickering on the fate of the road-and-rail bridge to connect Java and Sumatra islands that has a price tag estimated at least Rp 100 trillion.

Or did it? Agus, who was one of the seven ministers on the team, said that his peers had never met to discuss his proposal and had not agreed to reject it.

“The team has not met and our main discussion is still on whether this project will be classified as an unsolicited or solicited project,” Agus said.

“We [still] need to determine whether the government must provide guarantees in the state budget to mitigate risks in the future, the finance minister said.

The final assessment from the team is to serve as input for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who must decide whether to revise a 2011 president regulation on the megaproject, which calls for a 6-lane bridge to span 26 kilometers of the Sunda Strait.

The finance minister has been calling on Yudhoyono to revise the regulation, claiming that the state can finance the feasibility study for the bridge itself without involving the incentive-hungry private
sector.

Agus specifically objected to language in the regulation that would allow the winner of the project tender the exclusive right to manage two “strategic areas” on either side of the bridge in Banten in Java and Lampung in Sumatra.

Another part of the regulation deemed problematic was a provision that would give the project’s initiator, PT Graha Banten Lampung Sejahtera, the right to match the best offer from other contenders during the bidding process if it funds the feasibility study out of its own pocket.

PT Graha Banten Lampung Sejahtera is owned by the Banten and Lampung administrations and Bangungraha Sejahtera Mulia, a subsidiary of the Artha Graha Group, which was founded by tycoon Tomy Winata.

Hatta, who lead the Cabinet team, has long supported not changing current presidential regulation.

Proponents of maintaining the rule as is say it would be unfair for the central government to finance the bridge, given disparities in regional development.

“The team basically wants to maintain the stipulation that forbids utilizing the state budget. The team also stresses that the development of the bridge must be made under the concept of the regional development in the Sunda Strait region,” Hatta said on Thursday.

Separating the bridge from the development of the strategic areas would hurt the project’s financial viability, Hatta said.

Despite Agus’ claims, Hatta said that the team had made a final recommendation for the President’s endorsement.

Last week, Hiroshi Watanabe, the CEO of the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) said that the bank would be interested in financing the project if the government provided an acceptable business plan.

“If the toll charge for this bridge can be set at a high rate so that a return on investment can be reached in a timely manner, then the JBIC will consider investing in the project,” Watanabe said.