"We are ready to cooperate with the governor if land for flat house location has been made available," Perumnas President Director Himawan Arif Sugoto said.
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - State-owned housing company Perumnas said it was ready to help Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo (Jokowi) in the construction of flat houses for residents affected by floods in the Ciliwung river banks.

"We are ready to cooperate with the governor if land for flat house location has been made available," Perumnas President Director Himawan Arif Sugoto said here on Monday.

However, Himawan did not reveal the details and numbers of the flat houses, including their locations that his company was ready to develop.

He said that with the availability of land and cooperation with both sides, the regional government of Jakarta would be able to normalize the Ciliwung river areas while the residents would be helped in obtaining proper houses.

Jokowi has said earlier he would develop flat houses in Pasar Rumput areas (South Jakarta) to provide homes for 6,000 families in an effort to implement his Ciliwung river normalization program.

He said that the flat house development program was different from the village revitalization program launched by the Jakarta government previously.

The Ciliwung river normalization and flat house development programs in Pasar Rumput will be developed with funds taken from the non technical entry of the state budget under the coordination with the Ministry of Public Works and the Ministry of Public Housing.

Last week, Jokowi instructed all village and subdistrict heads to relocate settlers from river banks in Jakarta in an effort to accelerate normalization of rivers in the capital.

"We will carry out normalization programs on the Ciliwung, Pesanggrahan, Angke and Sunter rivers. I ask that residents living in the river bank areas should be relocated soon," Jokowi said at the City Hall last Wednesday.

Jokowi asked the relevant village and subsdistrict heads to begin making persuasive approaches to the people living on the river banks.

"The approaches should be done in a persuasive and patient way and so that residents would realize that their presence at river banks violate the rules," Jokowi said.

He said that if the officials failed to persuade residents, the working units of the village administration (UKPD) must report the case.

"If officials find obstacles when they make approaches, they should report the case immediately to me so that the case could be handled soon. I hope the work for normalizing rivers in Jakarta would have been started in April or May this year," the Jakarta governor said.

Besides that, Jokowi also hoped that after the rivers were already normalized, the UKPD in their respective areas should continue to supervise the rivers so that the rivers and their banks would continue to be sterilized from resident resettlement and street vendors.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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