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The Jakarta Post | Readers Forum | Wed, 9 January 2013, 1.23 PM 

Garbage and flooding in Jakarta

    The rainy season is the nemesis of any Jakarta governor. In the early 1970s, Governor Ali Sadikin always urged regents, district heads, community unit heads and neighborhood unit heads in Jakarta, as well as all residents, to clean their drainage systems. Gutters and drainage canals should be free from plastic garbage, the foul stuff that clogs drainage systems, in order to avoid heavy flooding. He even talked to his citizens on TV a few months before the rainy season started. He personally went to the most outlying areas in Greater Jakarta to help clear gutters and drainage systems and he checked whether officials were doing their jobs. Citizens of Jakarta constantly need education and warnings with regard to plastic garbage. Since Jakarta constantly grows with many people arriving to find jobs, Jakarta has grown out of proportion.

    In 2012 Governor Fauzi Bowo succeeded in building two flood canals and was about to build a third to alleviate heavy flooding. He even had to admit that it was a king-size job to free Jakarta from flooding. He built the elevated road to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in record time to at least help travelers be on time for their flights. Canals and rivers should be cleared of garbage and dredged before the rainy season begins in earnest.

    In 2013, Joko Widodo should use the media to constantly educate his citizens. Garbage is piled high in the vicinity of any market in Jakarta; plastic garbage is everywhere near restaurants and shopping malls. Heaps of garbage are a thorn in the city's flesh. Garbage collectors are working their fingers to the bone. Drainage canals are used as garbage dumps by ignorant Jakarta citizens. Rivers are full of plastic garbage with an occasional corpse floating amid all the junk. If Jakarta citizens continue to be ignorant, they should not blame the city's authorities for their flooded city and flooded underpasses. 
 

LYNNA VAN DER ZEE-OEHMKE
BOGOR, WEST JAVA 

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