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Jakarta to continue canal project despite legal defeat
The city administration will go ahead with the plan to construct a tunnel connecting Ciliwung River and the East Flood Canal despite having recently been defeated in a legal hearing launched by Bidara Cina residents in East Jakarta, whose lands are affected by the flood mitigation project.
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Residents of Bidara Cina in East Jakarta protest on May 28, 2015, over the land acquisition by the city administration. The residents won their legal battle against the city administration on Monday . (tempo.co/Eko Siswono Toyudho)
T
he city administration will go ahead with the plan to construct a tunnel connecting Ciliwung River and the East Flood Canal despite having recently been defeated in a legal hearing launched by Bidara Cina residents in East Jakarta, whose lands are affected by the flood mitigation project.
“The project is crucial to mitigate the flooding woes in the capital,” said Jakarta governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama on Friday.
Hiring Jakarta governor hopeful Yusril Ihza Mahendra as their lawyer, Bidara Cina residents won the legal battle against the city administration over the plan to acquire their lands for the flood mitigation project.
The residents filed a lawsuit against Gubernatorial Decree No. 2779/2015 on the land acquisition for the project which listed the total eviction area for the project as 10,357 square meters.
A previous decree issued in 2014 had outlined 6,095.94 square meters of affected land and residents said they were not informed of the change.
The city administration plans to appeal to the Supreme Court over the defeat.
Ahok said the city administration could force land owners to give up their land because the land was needed for the flood mitigating project.
“The administration is going to compensate the affected residents at the market price of their land. If residents reject the money, the administration will take the case to court,” he added.
“We will entrust the money to court. Regardless of whether or not they accept the money, we will tear down their buildings,” Ahok said on Friday.
He said his administration would disseminate further information to the affected residents as this had been the factor which led the administration to lose the court hearing at the Jakarta Administrative Court on Monday.
The governor denied that his administration had failed to carry out an information dissemination program before acquiring the land. “My question is, if they didn’t know about the eviction plan, how could they report the administration to National Human Right Commission? Must I personally visit all the Jakartans that will be affected by eviction,” Ahok said. (bbn)
