SINGAPORE and JAKARTA: Singapore said it is ready to assist the Jakarta government to develop a mass rapid transport system, according to Singaporean ambassador to Indonesia Anil Kumar Nayar. “Singapore has some experience in this field. So, if Jakarta is interested, we will help,” Indonesia's ANTARA news agency quoted Nayar as saying after meeting with Jakarta vice governor Basuki Tjahaya Purnama on Wednesday. However, Nayar stated that he did not discuss the MRT project exclusively during the meeting. Nayar said he discussed other issues, such the traffic problem in Jakarta. “It was an introductory meeting and we touched upon the main problems in Jakarta, such as traffic, housing and hospitality. It was a general discussion,” he explained. The Jakarta administration has not yet decided whether it should continue the MRT project. Governor Joko Widodo (Jokowi) is also yet to be convinced that the project would actually benefit the city. Jokowi said he was also expecting the central government to take a bigger share of the debt that would need to be borne for the project. Indonesians are becoming increasingly agitated by the government after it was announced that the capital, Jakarta, would not receive subsidies for public transport systems in the city. The announcement has left many wondering if the price of public transportation would see a rise. “We are not a very wealthy city and people, so if the prices rise I don't know if we will be able to manage as well as we had been," electrical engineer Mohid Islam Abdurahim told Bikyamasr.com on Saturday as he hopped on a bus heading to work. “I think we have to keep the prices lower so all people can take this kind of thing," he added. Indonesia's Finance Minister Agus Martowardojo said the government has no budget for subsidy on public transport. “There is no subsidy on public transport but it is in the form of grant, which forms a big support from the central government," Agus said in a statement, commenting on a subsidy to be proposed by Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo (Jokowi) to cut the ticket price of the Mass Rapid Transport (MRT), to be built by the city administration. The central government said it would not provide support in the form of subsidy for public transport, but in the other forms such as conversion of oil fuel into gas and in the use of renewable energy, Agus said on Friday. The Jakarta city administration's intention to provide subsidy on public transport is good but the city administration has to provide the subsidy itself, he said. “Otherwise other regional administrations may not get the message that public transport is the priority of regional administrations," he said. Agus said he agreed with the plan of the Jakarta governor to control the ticket price of MRT to a reasonable level. “The MRT price feasibility is important. I agree with the step taken by Jokowi but we have not talked about subsidy," he said. Earlier in a meeting with the leader of PT Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) at the City Hall, Jokowi expressed disagreement with the MRT ticket price and said he would ask the central government for subsidy. MRT project, which is railway transport partly underground and partly elevated, has long been delayed. The Japanese government has agreed to finance the multi-billion US dollar project, but implementation has exceeded the price. The new Jakarta governor has pledged to carry out the project as one of his ways of reducing notorious traffic jams in the city.
