JAKARTA, KOMPAS.TV – Deputy Speaker of the Indonesian House of Representatives, Rachmat Gobel, criticized the government’s policy of disbursing the State Revenue and Expenditure Budget (APBN) on the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed rail project.
Instead of being used to finance the high-speed rail project, according to him, the APBN should be focused on economic recovery, basic infrastructure development, and for the construction of the new State Capital (IKN).
“Let’s leave the issue of the high-speed train to the investors. This is in accordance with the original principled idea business to business,” he said quoted from Between, Sunday (31/10/2021).
It is known that China won the competition with Japan in the construction of the 142.3 km high-speed train with a proposal of US$5.5 billion, while Japan submitted a proposal with a value of US$6.2 billion.
He explained that China also won because it did not ask for government guarantees, there was no involvement of the state budget, and schemes business to business.
But then the cost swelled to 6.07 billion US dollars, and is now swelling again to 7.97 billion US dollars.
Also Read: The Government Uses IDR 4.3 Trillion of State Budget for the Jakarta-Bandung High Speed Train
“We don’t know if there will be another increase or not. What is certain is that it has swollen twice so far. This condition is contrary to the original three promises and is already more expensive than the Japanese proposal. Whereas in terms of quality, Japan is definitely much better,” said Rachmat Gobel.
According to him, in order for Indonesia to be consistent with the scheme, business to business, then the cost overrun was handed over to the Indonesian-China Fast Train (KCIC) consortium company.
This consortium involves nine companies. From Indonesia, there are four SOEs, namely Wijaya Karya, Jasamarga, Perkebunan Nusantara VIII, and KAI.
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