East Jakarta fire station has not been built due to scavengers squatting on land: officials

The forced removal of people living in makeshift settlements on land they don’t own is a touchy one for the administration of Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan, who campaigned, in part, on carrying out fewer and more humane evictions than his predecessor.

But, according to officials, the administration’s reluctance to remove an illegal settlement built on a plot in the city of East Jakarta is directly endangering citizens as it’s preventing them from building a desperately needed new fire station.

That was revealed yesterday during a meeting of the Jakarta City Council’s Commission D to discuss the budget for the Cipta Karya, Spatial Planning, and Land Agency (Citata) that had not been utilized in 2018.

“Don’t stop building because they’re scaring us. How can that be? Really, we’re going to lose to scavengers?” said Commission D member Tandanan Daulay yesterday as quoted by Kompas.

In fact, the budget for the construction of the East Jakarta Fire and Rescue Sub-district Station had already been allocated at IDR70.7 billion (US$5 million) and the land for it was already purchased by the Jakarta Government in 2010.

The head of the Citata Agency, Benny Agus Chandra, said he regretted that his party had not begun construction on the fire station but argued that it was because the East Jakarta City Government had done nothing to discipline or remove the residents living illegally on the land. Benny said they believed the land was already legally in the clear for them to begin construction.

Before he became presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto’s running mate, while he was still deputy governor of Jakarta, Sandiaga Uno ordered officials to clean out the ​​9,820-square-meter plot of land by the Pramuka Bypass, but the action was never carried out before Sandiaga ascended to the national political stage. 

Despite his administration’s seeming reluctance to carry out evictions, the Jakarta Legal Aid Foundation says that, during Governor Anies’ tenure, the government carried out 12 evictions in 2017 and 79 more in 2018, many of which were forced.