JAKARTA – Low infrastructure budget in 2015 State Budget urged Transportation Ministry to think over additional budget to expedite transportation infrastructure development. One of the strategies is to divide roles with State-Owned Enterprise (BUMN) Ministry in developing ports.
Transportation Ministry’s Special Staff for Public Information Transparency, Hadi M. Djuraid, said the government hands over 15 port projects to be further developed by BUMN. Prior to that, the project has been developed by Transportation Ministry.
Hadi asserted port project handover is stated on the letter of Transportation Minister, Ignasius Jonan, to BUMN Minister, Rini M. Soemarno, in this early week. The development mentioned in the letter comprises development and/or rehabilitation of port facilities.
By handing over the development of 15 ports to BUMN, Transportation Ministry will be more focused to develop the un-commercial ports. For example, the ports in border areas, remote areas, or outermost islands. “The commercial-valued projects are handed to BUMN. However, un-commercial projects will be conducted by Transportation Ministry,” Hadi said on Monday night (12/15).
Infrastructure development in remote areas will be financed using the budget previously used to develop 15 ports. Since 15 ports have been handed to BUMN, its budget is shifted to develop the ports in remote areas. “The budget which will be used is IDR 492.571 billion,” Hadi said.
Role sharing to develop the port is expected to be able to improve access and to distribute transportation infrastructure in Indonesia. The most important is transportation infrastructure access in remote areas.
Currently, there are 1,241 ports in Indonesia. From the number, 112 ports are managed by BUMN port firm and the rest is managed by Transportation Ministry through Technical Management Unit (UPT).
PLTA Project
Besides port infrastructure, the government will hand over the development of some electricity projects to BUMN.
Public Works and People’s Housing (PU-Pera) Minister, Basuki Hadimuljono said currently, his institution and Economy Coordinating Ministry are arranging the draft of presidential regulation (Perpres) instructing BUMN to develop water-fueled power plant (PLTA) at some dams. “Instruction details are arranged by National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) and Economy Coordinating Minister. We hope in the next year, it can be signed. We will instruct BUMN Karya to do it,” Basuki said.
PLTA development instruction to BUMN aims to not burden State Budget since there are around 203 dams in Indonesia included in PU-Pera Ministry study to be the location of PLTA.
Currently, there are four dams claimed to be ready for PLTA development. The four dams are located around Berantas River, East Java namely in Lodoyo, Third-Phase Karangkates, Fourth-Phase Karangkates in Malang, and Kesamben Dam, Blitar.
Indonesia has great potential to have PLTA. The total water resources of 3,900 billion cubic meters per year in the four dams can generate 75,000 megawatt electricity. (Kontan)
