Transportation Minister: Regional govts play an important role in facilitating transportation infrastructure projects
This article has been translated by PwC Indonesia as part of our Indonesia Infrastructure News Service. PwC Indonesia has not checked the accuracy of, and accepts no responsibility for the content.
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18 January 2023
Jakarta – Regional governments play an important role in facilitating national transportation infrastructure construction. Excellent synergy and collaboration with various related parties, especially regional governments, are needed so that transportation infrastructure construction programs can progress optimally.
“Excellent collaborations must be established starting from planning, construction, to operation of transportation facilities and infrastructure,” Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi said when he attended the Regional Head National Coordination Meeting and Regional Leadership Communication Forum (Forkopimda) held by the Home Affairs Ministry in Jakarta on Tuesday (17/1/2023).
As quoted from his official statement, the Transportation Minister mentioned that several collaborations had been established with regional governments to support programs in the transportation sector. The collaborations include support to increase the return cargo of maritime highway ships, block seat/subsidies for continuity of flights in regions, subsidy allocation to provide urban mass transportation using the buy the service scheme, and others.
“The maritime highway has expanded from 29 routes to 39 routes. The occupancy is great, and the price has gone down. We are continuously encouraging regional governments to increase return cargo on the maritime highway by carrying seaweed or fish so that the price of the maritime highway can be more economic and we can add more maritime highway routes,” the Transportation Minister explained.
Besides that, support in the form of land provision and acquisition, access road provision, spatial planning, and permits from regional governments are keys to facilitate transportation infrastructure construction.
Furthermore, the Transportation Minister explained that collaborations must be established to face one of the challenges faced by the central government and regional governments, which is the limited APBN (state budget) to fund various transportation infrastructure constructions and developments. One of the efforts is to look for non-APBN creative funding using the public-private partnership (PPP) scheme.
Several transportation infrastructures in several regions have has been successfully financed using creative financing. The utilisation cooperation (KSP) scheme has been implemented for Sentani Airport, Tjilik Riwut, Fatmawati, Hanandjoeddin, and Raden Inten. Meanwhile, the PPP scheme has been implemented for Patimban Port, Makassar – Pare-pare Railway. Moreover, Kediri Airport and International Motor Vehicle Proving Ground in Bekasi will also implement the PPP scheme.
“We cannot do this without collaboration. Hence, with the Home Affairs Ministry, in a sectoral manner, we will collaborate with regional governments in eastern, central, and western Indonesia,” the Transportation Minister said.
