Almost a year after a ground-breaking ceremony overseen by then coordinating economic minister Chairul Tanjung, Phase A of the National Coastal Integrated Capital Development (NCICD) project, which includes the strengthening of 94 kilometers of existing sea walls and river embankments, has yet to begin.

The current minister'€™s assistant deputy for water resources infrastructure, Mohammad Zainal Fatah, said recently that Phase A would be jointly carried out by the central government, the Jakarta administration and private companies.

Zainal said the central government planned to finish strengthening a 4.5-kilometer dike this year.

'€œHowever, the project is a little bit complicated, so it is impossible for it to be completed this year,'€ he said.

Zainal said the NCICD ground-breaking by Chairul last year at the Pluit pump house in North Jakarta focused only on the nearby area as it was deemed one of the most vulnerable locations.

The ground-breaking ceremony was attended by five ministers, one deputy minister, a top official from the Jakarta administration and the then Dutch ambassador to Indonesia, Tjeerd de Zwaan.

The ceremony, however, was a last minute event, held 10 days before the ministers left office. Then North Jakarta mayor Heru Budi Hartono complained that it was not only last minute but said workers at the Pluit pump house during the ceremony were actually carrying out a city administration program, not the NCICD.

In the NCICD master plan published in December 2014, the giant project should have had two presidential regulations (Perpres), one for the approval of the master plan and another for the formation of the development authority. Neither of the Perpres has been issued.

The NCICD is divided into three phases. The first one, Phase A, is called a no-regrets program because it simply strengthens existing sea walls and river embankments, and does not involve building any new walls.

Phase A will be funded by the central government, the city administration and private companies that receive permits for the construction of 17 planned islets.

Separately, Jakarta Regional Planning Board (Bappeda) head Tuty Kusumawati said because of the tardiness of the revised 2015 budget, the city administration had pared down the budget allocation for strengthening the existing walls.

'€œWe initially allocated more than Rp 1 trillion [US$75 million] but we reduced it to only Rp 200 billion as we have only a few months to go this year,'€ she said.

The city administration was previously tasked with building 8 kilometers of the walls, which would require Rp 3.2 trillion.

According to Tuty, developers that had been granted permits for building 17 artificial islets in Jakarta Bay also had yet to start work.

So far two companies, a subsidiary of Agung Sedayu, PT Kapuk Naga Indah, and a subsidiary of Agung Podomoro Land, PT Muara Wisesa Samudra, have received such permits.

The other companies are PT Jakarta Propertindo (Jakpro), city-owned PT Pembangunan Jaya Ancol and private developers PT Intiland Development'€™s subsidiary Taman Harapan Indah and PT Jaladri Kartika Ekapasi.

'€œThey have been discussing it but there hasn'€™t been any written contract,'€ she said.

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