Govt to spend Rp 38.8 trillion on new highways this year

JAKARTA. The Public Works Ministry will spend up to Rp 38.8 trillion (US$3.99 billion) on building new highways and bridges outside Java this year to help further boost regional economies.

Public Works Minister Djoko Kirmanto said 281.4 kilometers of new national roads and 7,164 meters of new bridges would mostly be constructed in border and remote areas.

“National road access in border and remote areas is very important to connect the areas with the center of the economy in their respective regions. Accessibility will help facilitate the [economic] growth,” Djoko said.

National roads are highways that link a province to other provinces. Their construction and maintenance are financed by the central government.

The minister said that the government would mainly focus on new highway accessibility in Kalimantan, East Nusa Tenggara and Papua.

In Kalimantan, the ministry plans to construct new roads from Temajuk in West Kalimantan to Sei Ular in East Kalimantan with a Rp 7.7 trillion budget.

The minister said the roads were not only aimed at helping the economy expand in the regions but also for national security reasons because the areas were mostly located at the borders with Malaysia’s Sabah and Sarawak.

Meanwhile in East Nusa Tenggara, the government plans to create access from Atambua to Wini, which border Timor Leste. Timor Leste was Indonesia’s 27th province before it gained independence in 1999.

“For bridges, we are going to start several big projects such as the Tayan Bridge in West Kalimantan, the Pulau Balang Bridge in East Kalimantan and the Musi II Bridge in South Sumatra,” he said.

For the Tayan Bridge project, he said that a China-Indonesia joint operation between the China Road and Bridge Corporation and state-owned Wijaya Karya would handle the whole project.

He said bridges constructed throughout 2013 were expected to be finished in 2014 as they were part of the government’s Masterplan for the Acceleration and Expansion of Indonesian Economic Development (MP3EI) program.

In addition, he said the ministry was set to widen several sections of existing national roads in order to cope with the increasing daily traffic and prevent gridlock.

He said the road sections would connect Pati in Central Java and Trengggalek in East Java and South Sulawesi’s Makassar and Parepare.

“We plan to widen the national roads from four meters to seven meters to help accommodate increasing traffic,” he continued. (Nurfika Osman/ The Jakarta Post)