Indonesia: Jokowi Cancels Sunda Strait Bridge Project

Jakarta Globe 4 Nov 14;

Jakarta. The administration of President Joko Widodo will not pursue an ambitious plan to build a bridge between the islands of Java and Sumatra, senior officials have said.

“Joko has reviewed the project [and] I’m sure that the project is not an option for at least the next 10 to 15 years,” Andrinof Chaniago, the minister for national development planning, said as quoted by Kompas.com.

He said Joko preferred instead to focus on improving boat services between the country’s two most populated islands, as part of his wider effort to leverage Indonesia’s maritime potential.

“We’ll opt for improvements in [the existing] sea transportation. We want comfortable ships, more docks if needed. When we’re done with those, then we can go ahead with the Sunda Strait bridge project,” Andrinof said.

Plans to build a bridge have been mooted since the 1960s, but it wasn’t until the administration of Joko’s predecessor, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, that the idea got more serious attention.

A pre-feasibility study was kicked off in October 2007, and in January 2010 Yudhoyono issued a regulation on the formation of technical teams for the development. The whole project was expected to take eight to 10 years to complete, at an estimated cost of at least $10 billion.

However, chief economics minister Sofyan Djalil denied that the Yudhoyono administration had any expectation of starting the project this year.

“There was never any fixed decision on the Sunda Strait bridge,” he said on Monday as quoted by Detik.com. “There were problems about the money and the local governments involved. Even when Yudhoyono’s term was up there was no decision on this. It remained an idea. Now, it’s not in line with [Joko’s] maritime concept, so that’s the problem.”

Public Works and Housing Minister Basuki Hadimuljono said separately on Monday that the cancellation was prudent, given that the bridge would serve only the economic development of Java and Sumatra, and not that of the less-developed regions in the country’s east.

The scrapping of the project is not without its critics, though. Marwan Cik Asan, a legislator from Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party, questioned the lack of an open discussion leading up to the decision.

“There are no good reason behind the scrapping,” he said as quoted by Antara. “The people have been waiting for this project. Citing the maritime aspect and development inequality as reasons [for not continuing] isn’t good enough.”