Govt to revise regulations to speed up LRT project

JAKARTA. Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama has said the government is set to revise a presidential decree (Perpres) and a government regulation (PP) to speed up the construction of the light rail transit (LRT) project.

Ahok said President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo on Tuesday held a meeting to follow up on the construction of LRT projects in several regions across Indonesia. The Jakarta governor said he and Transportation Minister Ignasius Jonan, as well as West Java Governor Ahmad Heryawan and South Sumatera Governor Alex Noerdin, attended the meeting.

During the meeting, Ahok said, Jokowi asked him to present a report on the progress of the LRT project because up until now the city administration had not yet started construction.

As reported earlier, two regulations, namely PP No. 79/2015 on the implementation of construction services and Perpres No. 98/2015 on the acceleration of the implementation of LRT projects in Jakarta, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi, have continued to hamper the implementation of the LRT construction project in Jakarta.

PP 79 stipulates the Jakarta administration may appoint a state-owned enterprise to implement the LRT construction project. The problem is the Jakarta administration has planned that the city's LRT construction project will be conducted by a provincially owned company, PT Jakarta Propertindo (Jakpro), which will team up with state-owned developer PT Adhi Karya. To resolve the matter, the government must first revise existing regulations.

Ahok said Perpres 98 should be revised so that the Jakarta administration could appoint operators such as city-owned PT Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) and state-owned train operator PT Kereta Api Indonesia to develop LRT projects in the future.

Meanwhile, PP 79 should be revised so that the Jakarta administration could directly appoint a state-owned enterprise to carry out the LRT project, the governor further said.

"The legal interpretation of the PP is that [Jakpro] cannot appoint PT Adhi Karya to carry out the LRT project, since the project winner should be decided through a tender process. If we revise this regulation, Adhi Karya can directly work on the construction project," Ahok said.

The governor said he believed that the revision of the two regulations would not take a long time.

The Jakarta administration has also planned to ask PT MRT to conduct a project tender to comply with Law No. 23/2007 on the railway. “PT MRT has had experience in conducting such a tender; thus, it [entrusting the project tendering to the company] may speed up the LRT construction,” Ahok said. (Callistasia Anggun Wijaya)