TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Analysis: Nusantara capital city not on Prabowo’s priority agenda
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Construction continues on the Presidential Palace and its vast Garuda wings in the future capital city of Nusantara in North Penajam Paser, East Kalimantan on July 11, 2024. The new city is scheduled to open as the country's new political center on Aug. 17, Indonesia's Independence Day. (AFP/Yasuyoshi Chiba)
S
omething was missing from President Prabowo Subianto’s inaugural speech before the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) on Sunday. He mentioned all his priority agendas, from energy and food self-sufficiency to human development, but nothing at all about the future capital of Nusantara, a signature project under his predecessor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.
The fact that Prabowo did not mention a word about Nusantara in his speech indicated that it is not his priority in the next five years. This leaves the fate of Nusantara now in question, whether it will become the capital city at all. Jokowi did not sign a decree to relocate the nation’s capital from Jakarta to Nusantara as promised, before he stepped down. The responsibility, if not burden, has now shifted to President Prabowo.
This transfer of responsibility for the presidential decree has only added to the controversy surrounding the Nusantara development project, which Jokowi launched after winning reelection in 2019. Debate over the capital city’s planned relocation has also shrouded the period preceding the transition from Jokowi to Prabowo, albeit behind closed doors.
When announcing the Nusantara project, Jokowi said relocating the capital would not only help alleviate the problems facing Jakarta, but also distribute development more evenly across the country and ease inequality between Java and other islands, such as Kalimantan, Sumatra and Papua.
Moving the capital to Nusantara is also expected to spur growth in the local economy by attracting investments, creating jobs and stimulating local businesses. By shifting the economic focus away from Java, the government hopes to achieve a more balanced, equitable distribution of wealth.
Nevertheless, the Nusantara mega project has added a burden to the state, especially in terms of fiscal capacity. Worse, the foreign investments that were supposed to provide the bulk of its funding have been slow in coming.
Injecting the required funds into Nusantara’s development from sources other than the state budget will be challenging for President Prabowo, as the foreign debt he will inherit from Jokowi had reached Rp 8,462 quadrillion (US$545.45 billion) by August.
