The Government of Indonesia Accelerates the Water Infrastructure Development Project
Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia- The Director of Public Works and Housing Infrastructure Financing of the Ministry of Public Works and Housing (MPWH), Herry Trisaputra Zuna, acknowledged that Indonesia's water infrastructure is still lagging behind other countries.
"In terms of water infrastructure, Indonesia is still far behind compared to other countries. The water coverage is only reaching 50 cubic meters per capita per year, while other countries are in the 1000's and more. So, we still have a lot to do to fulfill this," said Herry in a special dialogue with the theme "Water for Shared Prosperity-Towards the 10th World Water Forum 2024 in Bali" organized by the MPWH in collaboration with CNBC Indonesia on Tuesday (6/12/2022).
Therefore, in the Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJM), he said that the government has set development targets until 2024. The scope of development includes building 61 dams, 500 thousand hectares of irrigation, 2 million rehabilitation, 50 cubic meters of raw water per second, up to the construction of 500 ponds.
"So, this is all that we are targeting up to 2024. But there is still much more that we have to provide," said Harry.
However, related to infrastructure development, it turn out that the government is still experiencing many obstacles in term of financing. Since funding from the government itself is only around 30% and it is 37% based on the RPJM.
"This means that we must find a way to fund the infrastructure projects that are not from the State Budget (APBN). Here we are considering innovative financing and how we might welcome private investors to participate in enhancing the capacity of infrastructure development, particularly for water resources," he elaborated.
Meanwhile, Herry stated that Indonesia's pipeline coverage for drinking water was only at 20% Indonesia still needs to work on another 80% to reach 100%, so that all Indonesia Could have complete access to drinking water.
The average pipe coverage for Asian nations is currently 70%. This indicates that Indonesia is still far behind, and achieving the 80% target would be very difficult if it was only carried out with state budget funding, he added.
"The closest to us is drinking water. Indonesia is at 20% of its pipeline coverage. Imagine Laos is already above that, so we are below Laos. Asia is already 70%. Then, how we get to 100% meaning there is 80% we have to do together, which is not possible because we are all using the state budget." He finished.
Translated by Team of the 10th World Forum