President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo said on Tuesday that no permanent solutions had been found to resolve the reoccurring issues that have hampered the projects, especially delays in land acquisition in the Cisumdawu project.

“I still see many reoccurring technical and administrative issues with no permanent solution. We haven’t created a simple and concise regulation that offers a real solution to these issues,” he said during a limited meeting on National Strategic Projects (PSN) at the Merdeka Palace.

He said the land acquisition issues included delays in repayments for land acquisition costs, likely referring to repayments to PT Citra Karya Jabar Tol (CKJT), a subsidiary of publicly listed toll road operator PT Citra Marga Nusaphala Persada (CMNP), which is in charge of several sections of the project.

Land acquisition has long been an obstacle for the country’s toll road projects, along with administrative challenges, high costs of land clearance and difficult terrain.

Previously, three state-owned construction companies, PT Waskita Karya, PT Hutama Karya and PT Wijaya Karya, stated that they were seeking repayments from the government for Rp 5.6 trillion (US$390.4 million) in accumulated land acquisition expenses for infrastructure projects.

The opening of the Cisumdawu toll road, which will connect the West Java capital of Bandung and the newly built Kertajati International Airport in Majalengka, has been the delayed from the end of this year to September 2021 because of land problems. The completion of the Rp 8.41 trillion toll road project is highly anticipated, as it is expected to cut travel time from Bandung to the airport to less than an hour from around 2.5 hours at present.

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