The 270 or so islands that are home to approximately 80,000 residents make up the Natuna regency, part of the Riau Islands province that is located in the outermost region in the country’s north, very close to a major flashpoint in Southeast Asia. The regency not only borders the hotly contested South China Sea but also Vietnam and Cambodia.

The proposal to make the region its own province was tabled by local authorities more than a year ago, based on the suggestion that it was an outlying yet strategic location that suffers from massive underdevelopment.

The 2014 Law on regional administrations currently does not afford regency and city administrations the authority to oversee territorial seas and economic waters, thus preventing regencies like Natuna from securing areas from foreign encroachment.

Home Minister Tito Karnavian acknowledged these factors when he visited Laut Island, Natuna’s northernmost inhabitable island where some 2,200 people live, and which lies six hours away from the regency capital of Ranai.

But he turned down the proposal by Regent Wan Siswandi for the time being because the ministry was inundated with more than 300 proposals for new provinces.

“The most important implication of making a new province is the [new] budget. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, our projected earnings are not on target at both the national and regional levels, so this has affected our budgetary capacity to [take on more proposals],” he told reporters after meeting with Laut Island residents.

Because of these concerns, he said his ministry had imposed a moratorium on new provinces, in effect at least until the economy recovers.

Read also: Top officials head to Natuna to bolster frontier

 

Fortifying borders

Tito, along with Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Mahfud MD, was in the area on a two-day work trip to check on the development of the outer islands and touch base with local administrators.

They include officials from Sekatung Island, which is located north of Laut Island and is officially the northernmost point in Indonesia. Sekatung is a baseline marker for Indonesia’s territorial sea and exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in waters the government renamed in 2017 the North Natuna Sea, to which Beijing objected.

China has illegally operated fishing and coast guard vessels in the waters on the basis of sweeping claims over the adjacent South China Sea. An international tribunal invalidated those claims in 2016, which Beijing ignored.

The spat with China has on more than one occasion led President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to visit Natuna as a symbolic gesture to stamp authority on the region. Mahfud visited separately in 2020, unlike previously reported.

Since then, tensions have continued to simmer and the government has made a commitment to fortifying its border areas.

Tito, in his capacity as head of the National Border Management Agency (BNPP), said the government would “share the burden” of developing Natuna together with the provincial administration and relevant ministries.

He said the regency was running an annual budget of Rp 1 trillion (US$69.8 million), while as of Nov. 23 this year, it had earned just Rp 714 billion, signaling a possibility that the region may run on a deficit by the end of this year.

“There has to be assistance from [the Riau Islands] provincial administration and the central government, which is why we are here to listen to what the people need so we can set up the budget for 2022,” he said.

Laut Island was one of the government’s 222 priority locations for accelerated development, the former police general said, which would allow it more key infrastructure.

One of the island’s residents, Tabrani, said that just 10 kilometers of the 30-km road connecting three villages on the island was paved, and that mobile internet connection was available in only one village. He also said the island was in need of more electricity generators.

“For a long time, ministers and officials have come here to sell us their programs, which were left unrealized after they left,” he told the ministers in the public dialogue.

Read also: Amid spat with China, Natuna regent demands special status for islands

 

Defense reorganization

The moratorium on new provinces has been in place since earlier this year, with the notable exception of development in Papua, where feasibility studies are already under way.

Besides putting the blame on financial constraints due to the reallocation of state funds to the COVID-19 response, the government said it was holding off provincial expansion to curb the risk of regions becoming too dependent on state funds through the general allocation fund (DAU) scheme.

Specifically for Natuna, which the state has declared a strategic area, the upgrade to a province would entail a reorganization of the regional military command.

However, the central government appears to shirk from giving local administrators more authority, experts say.

Sayed Fauzan Riyadi, executive director of the Southeast Asia and Border Management Research Center at the Maritime University of Raja Ali Haji, insists that Natuna should be exempted from the provincial expansion ban.

Fauzan said that the founding of a defense area, as mandated in the 2002 Defense Law, should be part of the paradigm of development in the national defense posture.

“So if Natuna regency [and neighboring] Anambas are to be designated as provinces, this would actually help realize the defense potential of the region and bring it in line with the placement of military bases and defense equipment there,” he told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

Natuna is currently the site of several military facilities, such as the Ranai naval base. The territory currently comes under the purview of the Navy's Western Region Fleet Command (Koarmabar) and a composite battalion under the authority of the Indonesian Military’s (TNI) Joint Regional Defense Command (Kogabwilhan) I, which operates in the nation’s eastern territorial seas and outlying waters.

Fauzan said, however, that Jakarta did not appear to pay much attention to this. “It is as if each [agency] works on its own. The BNPP focuses on building infrastructure, while the Defense Ministry and the TNI focus on defense,” said the lecturer based in Tanjungpinang, Riau Islands.