Sunday, December 30, 2012

Decision on monorail pushed to January

Jakarta Governor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo said on Friday that he will determine the fate of the city’s monorail project in January, pending a detailed technical presentation from the bidder.

The governor said that he still needed to hear the presentation from the potential developer PT Jakarta Monorail (JM) on the construction of the project.

“I’m giving [JM] until Jan. 15, so they can complete their study on the monorail construction, including the financial, crossing and technical aspects,” he said after meeting a representative from JM at City Hall.

As soon as JM completed its presentation, Jokowi said he would immediately determine his next step so the project could begin soon.

Jokowi also said that JM was currently the only bidder on the project as another bidder, state-owned construction firm PT Adhi Karya, did not want to continue to be involved in the project.

“Adhi Karya is no longer interested in it. But we’re still giving them the opportunity if they want to do another monorail route,” he said.

Previously, two consortiums were interested in teaming up with the Jakarta administration on the monorail project.

One of the consortiums is led by JM, which was responsible for the failed monorail construction project that was started in 2005 and then halted in March 2008 due to legal and financial problems.

JM’s consortium is made up of a number of foreign and local construction companies and financial institutions, though the firm claimed that most of the consortium members had now changed, leaving only a fraction of the original lineup.

The other consortium is led by state-owned construction firm PT Adhi Karya, which is collaborating with state toll road operator PT Jasa Marga, state electricity firm PT PLN, state-owned PT Bank Mandiri, state train builder PT Inka, electronic components maker PT LEN Industry and state-owned telecommunications firm PT Telkom.

Adhi Karya previously held a 7.5 percent stake in JM.

Adhi Karya president director Kiswodarmawan said earlier that the company had tried to work with JM in the past, but nothing came of the cooperation, so they would not do it again.

Earlier this year, Adhi Karya offered to build its own version of the monorail network, the first phase of which was estimated to cost around Rp 12 trillion (US$1.24 billion).

JM’s spokesperson Bavananto said that they would immediately work on the presentation as requested by the governor, especially its technical aspects. “We can’t use our initial design so there will be some changes because of the city’s current condition,” he said.

However, he said that the company would still use its initial routes. The first route will connect Semanggi and Kuningan in South Jakarta while the second route will link Kampung Melayu in East Jakarta and Taman Anggrek shopping center in West Jakarta.

JM’s initial construction work left rows of concrete columns along the roads in Senayan, Central Jakarta, and Kuningan in South Jakarta.

Before the plan to resurrect the monorail project surfaced, the previous administration planned to use the abandoned columns for its elevated Bus Rapid Transit project.

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