Want to Stop the Annual Mudik Road Carnage? Push Development in Areas Outside Jakarta

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Want to Stop the Annual Mudik Road Carnage? Push Development in Areas Outside Jakarta
Yohanes Sulaiman | August 28, 2012

The Transportation Ministry stated last week that there were 4,333 traffic accidents during this year’s mudik season, leaving 760 people dead and 5,308 injured, while causing Rp 8.33 billion in damages. By Monday the death toll had risen to 820. 

The police blamed the high number of accidents and casualties on many motorists’ disregard for traffic regulations, which is not surprising considering that it is also estimated that 1,548 of those people who were involved in the accidents did not have a driver’s license. At the same time, the government is blamed for not providing adequate alternative modes of transportation. 

All of this ignored one big problem: the inequality of economic growth throughout Indonesia. 

This year it is estimated that 8.3 million people left Jakarta to return to their hometowns in Central and East Java. While officials in Jakarta have consistently tried to prevent more people from moving to the already overburdened city, they are fighting a losing battle. 

Like it or not, people will keep coming to Jakarta as long as Jakarta remains the center of our national economy. 

In 2010, for instance, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics, Jakarta contributed roughly 16.31 percent of the national gross domestic product. That means that the GDP of Jakarta alone was slightly larger than the GDP of entire province of East Java and twice as big as the GDP of Central Java. 

With such an economic concentration in a very small region, it should come as no surprise to anyone that people will flock to Jakarta in the hopes of improving their lives. They then will return to their hometowns during mudik season. With so many people on the road, it should not be any wonder that traffic accidents will increase, especially considering the poor condition of the roads and the ignorance of many people when it comes to proper road etiquette and basic knowledge of the law. 

While better transportation infrastructure and driver education would help decrease the number of accidents, a much better policy is needed to bolster economic growth in the other parts of Java that are the destinations of the annual exodus. In order to do that, the government has to improve the transportation infrastructure. 

Because of massive traffic jams, horrible road conditions, the lack of deep-water harbors to ship products, red tape and what is perceived as a lack of legal protection outside of Jakarta, it is only natural for industries to gravitate to Jakarta. The capital has better transportation infrastructure and is where people can find better jobs. 

While the government is planning to increase the budget for infrastructure spending by 14.9 percent in 2013, bringing it to Rp 193.8 trillion (approximately $20.3 billion, and 11.6 percent of the budget), such an increase is long overdue, and considering the current state of Indonesia’s infrastructure, would probably be inadequate. 

What the government needs to do is to encourage more private investment in transportation infrastructure and labor-extensive industries, especially outside of the Jakarta region. To do that, however, the government has to develop a strong, united and coherent economic policy, trim the bureaucracy, streamline labor laws and business permits, and ensure investors that even in the outlying regions, they will not suffer from the greed of unscrupulous local officials. 

More important, the government needs to show commitment in upholding the law and eradicating corruption. Sadly, the government has been burying its head in the sand in the past few years. 

While President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono keeps voicing his displeasure over his government’s poor performance in boosting economic growth, his inaction in the light of a recent fight between the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and the National Police has done little to generate public trust. 

Actions speak louder than words. As long as Yudhoyono is unable to translate his rhetoric into action, investors will remain jittery over what they perceive as Indonesia’s lack of seriousness in upholding the rule of law. And they won’t have the desire to invest far from the capital’s city limits. 

Thus Jakarta will keep having its traffic jams, and the annual death toll from mudik will keep increasing.

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Pelan2

3:10pm Aug 28, 2012

Pak Yohanes - on the spot again - too bad that SBY does not read your snippets when they are published.

With the electoral system presently in force, no capable independent Indonesian will come forward to lead. Presidential candidates will be the "has beens" - brought up through the political parties, which are all ridden with corruption, and if elected, they are faced with the "payback issue" to those political parties that backed him/her during the run-up to the election. Rather disappointing that 250 mill Indonesians have to choose between a bunch of handpicked "crooks" instead of getting fresh, forward thinking Indonesian candidates. One "small" hope though, is that Jokowi steamrolls over Fauzi Bowo in the DKI-1 election on Sep. 20th and that he will later move on to the national stage - last hope I would say..

jchay

3:57pm Aug 28, 2012

Move the capital city out of Jakarta, give more incentive for investors, get rid of non-performance and corrupt Bupati.. c'mon Indonesia, it's 2012. Be smarter voters or else you're shooting your own foot!

bajajbutut

7:11pm Aug 28, 2012

At the end of the day, I think it's up to the motorists to start looking after ourselves. Accident can occur anywhere, anytime. I really think it's the people mentality, their driving style and their disregard to road safety that account more to road accidents than anything else.

Yohanes-Sulaiman

7:31am Aug 29, 2012

Thank you all for your comments.

@Pelan2: To be frank, I am probably one of few people who actually look at Jokowi skeptically. Yes, he is a lesser of two evils, but dunno, I think he is way overhyped, and when he could not deliver due to the huge problems that Jakarta face, then expect s**t hits the fan. I wish him the best though.

@Jchay: the idea of moving capital out of Jakarta has actually been broached as early as in 1910s(?). Bandung's "Gedung Sate" was supposed to be the new Dutch Governor General palace. So, don't think it will happen anytime soon (unfortunately).

@Bajajbutut: agree, but that does not address the root cause of the mudik phenomena itself. Still, you are right that the driving style in Indonesia is atrocious and I blame it to the lack of law enforcement with the police ready to look elsewhere when they are offered some incentives.

zerodiversity

9:20am Aug 29, 2012

Pak Yohannes made a good point but I am done thinking that SBY would do something about the problem. From now till 2014 SBY would be more interested to negotiate on ways to consolidate his power after his term is done. He would not put the country interest first.

Yohanes-Sulaiman

10:33am Aug 29, 2012

@zerodiversity: I agree. The next two years will be power consolidations. There are some rumors about him trying to groom a young minister in his cabinet to be his successor (not Hatta), so I don't think there will be any major breakthrough in respect of anything in the next two years. (You might notice that this piece is more of an analysis than the usual "exhortation.")

Pelan2

10:56am Aug 29, 2012

@Yohanes - noted your reservations about Jokowi, maybe you are right. However, if he wins by a huge margin, at least that would show that he has the majority of Jakartans behind him which would give him a good mandate to govern and the political parties should be very careful not to put "the breaks on" keeping the 2014 elections in mind.

Yohanes-Sulaiman

11:29am Aug 29, 2012

@Pelan2: I don't discount the impact of a landslide to his ability to get things done. That will be a good wake up call to a lot of Indonesian politicians and the corrupt oligarchy that support them. At the same time, however, this might also inspire his political opponents to try to make his life hell, in order to ensure that he won't be a viable candidate for higher office. Moreover, people tend to be impatient for someone who they believe as Messiah, and thus when he cannot deliver in his first or second years, expect things to turn ugly. Still, I do sincerely hope that my misgivings are misplaced in this case.

zerodiversity

2:29pm Aug 29, 2012

Don't expect too much even if Jokowi-Ahok did manage to win the election. There are too much problems piled up in Jakarta and the bureaucracy is too much to expect Jokowi to perform miracles. If Jokowi manages to show us his determination for changes and small but concrete steps towards making improvement, I will say he is a good enough leader.

As for the yearly mudik problems, I am surprised that we are already going into 2013 and there is still no express toll road from Jakarta to Surabaya. Connecting the entire java island would have indirectly improved the traffic condition in Jakarta tremendously. I believe the main reason we don't have a connected java island is because too many people want a share of the big profit the project would have given.

Yohanes-Sulaiman

7:14am Aug 30, 2012

@Zerodiversity: Corruption is probably the only reason for this lack of express toll road. I believe that there was a company planning to invest in a toll road a couple of years ago, but they decided to pull out once they found out that the total bribes that they had to pay would have already at least doubled the original estimate of investment needed to build the toll road.

TheSplodge

10:22am Aug 30, 2012

@All

It would be interesting to have a break down of deaths caused by accidents to see where the majority of problems lie.

I, for one, would be surprised if the vast majority of deaths and injuries were not to motorbike riders. If that is the case, surely one way to lessen the awful carnage would be to ban all motorbikes from leaving the city, especially the 'bebeks'. Since Jakarta bikes have a 'B' on the license plate I can't imagine it would be very difficult to enforce.

I realize that this does not solve the problem of how to get hundreds of thousands of Indonesians back to their kampungs but saving around 6000 people from being killed or injured must surely be the higher priority.

zerodiversity

10:39am Aug 30, 2012

@Pak Yohannes

I agree, the government and bureaucracy here is a farce and disgrace to the country. Those so-called "government people" think only of themselves and how much money they can siphon off the country. I am not surprised foreign and private companies refused to invest money in toll road projects because of the huge amount of 'grease' money they have to pay

devine

3:38pm Aug 30, 2012

Pelan2; my guess is that SBY actually reads the snippets... but does not understand them...

Nullify

3:43pm Aug 30, 2012

Country Corruption indices such as Corruption Perception Index etc are made and published yearly to aid potential investors in their feasibility studies. Ignore these indices at your own perils.