Clean residential grids pass through green spaces on Tuesday (27/8/2019) in Handil village of Muara Jawa Ilir subdistrict, Muara Jawa district, in Kutai Kertanegara regency, East Kalimantan. The two coastal districts of Muara Jawa and neighboring Samboja are on the border between Kutai Kertenagara and North Penajam Paser regencies, which President Joko Widodo has selected as the location of the new Indonesian capital.
Social and environmental studies need to be conducted in the would-be location of the new capital city in East Kalimantan. The draft of the legal basis for the relocation also needs immediate deliberation.
JAKARTA, KOMPAS — The relocation of the national capital of the Republic of Indonesia to East Kalimantan has serious environmental and social impacts, as well as enormous costs. Therefore, thorough research is needed in the location of the new capital city, especially to assess the area’s supporting and environmental capacity.
This is important because there are conservation areas in the vicinity of the proposed new capital, such as the Bukit Soeharto forest park and Balikpapan Bay.
At the same time, the precise location of the new national capital in the regencies of North Penajam Paser and Kutai Kartanegara needs to be decided soon, so that the East Kalimantan provincial administration can immediately designate a special noncommercial area to protect the area and prevent unnecessary social upheaval.
This step is needed because, according to a Kompas investigation on Tuesday (27/8/2019), an increasing number of residents in the Kutai Kertanegara districts of Samboja and Muara Jawa are selling land. More than 30 signs for land on sale have been put up along a 40-kilometer stretch of the coastal road, Jl. Balikpapan-Samboja, which is proposed as the location of the new city, but the status of land ownership is not clear. The land for sale could be conservation area, under a concession contract or belong to another private party or the state.
In Bukit Merdeka subdistrict, Samboja, for example, the selling price of land was originally Rp 60,000 to Rp 100.00 per square meter. After the announcement that East Kalimantan could be the location of the new national capital, the land prices rose to Rp 1.5 million per square meter.
The day after President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo announced the plan to relocate the capital to East Kalimantan, the selling price of land surged to Rp 10 million per square meter.
In addition to offering land at high prices, landowners, such as Kus from South Sulawesi, are also trying to obtain certificates for their land in Bukit Merdeka, Samboja.
However, according to Bukit Merdeka subdistrict secretary Antonius Pakalla, the land claimed by Kus is part of the Bukit Soeharto forest park. Thus, the land cannot be traded, because it belongs to the state.
Study results
At the House of Representatives plenary meeting yesterday, House Speaker Bambang Soesatyo confirmed he had received a letter from President Jokowi related to the results of a study about the relocation of the national capital from Jakarta to East Kalimantan and the President had requested support.
However, the letter did not include the academic text and draft regulations needed for the new capital city. In fact, according to the statement of the Regional Autonomy Directorate General at the Home Ministry, at least five laws need to be revised, two laws must be made from scratch and two other laws must be either revised or made from scratch.
The secretary of the National Mandate Party’s House faction, Yananto Susanto, noted that the legal basis for the relocation of the capital had to be completed before any development was carried out in the new location. "If development is carried out without a law, it could be seen as illegal activity," he said.
House secretary-general Iskandar said the deliberation of a regulation as the legal umbrella for moving the capital was not simple and required time.
Regarding this matter, PDI-P chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri said the decision by the government certainly made sense. "I only propose and suggest that we, please, be cautious and think about it for a long period of time," she said.
Previously, National Development Planning Minister/ National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) head Bambang Brodjonegoro said the academic text and deliberation of the bill, which would become the basis for the new capital, would be completed in 2020. Thus, by the end of 2020, physical development of the new capital would have begun in East Kalimantan.
Meanwhile, Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya said an assessment of the environmental impact of the relocation of the country\'s capital to East Kalimantan would be completed within two months. The preparation of the study would involve environmentalists and other figures.
The government, continued Siti, was committed to maintaining conservation areas, such as the Bukit Soeharto forest park and Balikpapan Bay. "The President has ordered that, in preparing the relocation of the capital city, we at the same time improve community forest parks and conservation areas. We are also rejuvenating areas around former mines," she said.
The new capital city, according to Siti, would take up some areas that are currently industrial forest, but this was not a problem, because Law No. 41/1999 on forestry stated that the use and utilization of forests was determined by the government, in this case the ministry in charge of forestry. In addition, forest allocation could be reviewed based on national policy.
Civil service
Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform Minister Syafruddin said around 180,000 state civil servants (ASN) would be relocated to the new state capital. The ASNs to be transferred are those who work in central government ministries and agencies, not those who work in local administrations.
Syafruddin also emphasized that the new national capital would be designed as an environmentally friendly smart city. All facilities would be built, from offices to educational facilities, health facilities and housing.
ASN at the State Secretariat said they were ready to move to a new national capital. "I am ready, because since the entrance test to become an ASN, I have promised to be ready to be assigned anywhere in the territory of Indonesia," said Rusmin Nuryadin, assistant deputy for Public Communications and Information at the Secretariat of the Vice President.
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