ARUM’s Advocacy on ADB Project- Integrated Citarum Water Resource Management Investment Project (ICWRMIP) – up date

ARUM (People’s Alliance for Citarum)

People’s Alliance for Citarum (ARUM) is a network of Civil Society Organizations and Individual who concern upon the livelihood of Citarum River, so that this river could be used for the people’s welfare, as mandated on Indonesian Constitution article 33 (UUD 1945). ARUM has done monitoring to ICWRMIP since February 2008, and have contacted our National Planning Bureau, Ministry of Public Works, Office on Citarum River (BBWS), and also ADB management as efforts in gaining information related to the ICWRMIP planning of project implementation. ARUM has also done documents analysis related to this project compared to ADB’s own policy. ARUM has also done monitoring to the field to see the implementation of the project. ARUM supported by IeSR (Institute for Essential Services Reform), KRuHA (Koalisi Rakyat untuk Hak atas Air), debtWATCH Indonesia, Koalisi Ornop Jabar, E-LAW Indonesia, Perkumpulan Boemi, Bandung Information Governance Studies (BIGS),  Skepo, Inisiatif, PSDK, PBAL, P3MS, Yayasan Lestari,  Elkail and other individuals.

For further information:

• Dadang Sudarja (+62 817 31220356, [email protected])
• Arimbi Heroepoetri (+62 811 848514, [email protected])
• Hamong Santono (+62 815 11485137, [email protected])
• Diana Gultom (+62 815 9202737, [email protected])

Water crisis in Indonesia has become a burden to Indonesian People. Water has become a luxurious product which you have to pay to get it. This condition reflected from testimonies of urban people, such as Umi from Bekasi stated “In order to get clean water, I have to pay Rp1000,- up to Rp. 2000,-  per bucket, that I usually use for cooking only. While I use salty water  for taking a bath and washing”.

To cope with this problem, ADB came up with a project, entitled Integrated Citarum Water Resource Management (ICWRM). This project amounted USD1,7 million as a grant  for the preparation stage, while the proposed loan itself amounted USD 500 million which supposed to be approved on September 2007. ICWRM is a 15-year program (starting from 2008) designed to address the  multiple and inter-related concerns of water supply sustainability and water quality degradation within the Citarum (West Java, Indonesia) river basin. The basin covers 13,000 square kilometers and is home to more than 9 million people. It is considered one of the most strategically important for Indonesia—the   basin supplies 80% of Jakarta’s water needs, provides irrigation for 240,000 ha, and generates 1,400 MW of electricity.

On 26March 2008, some NGOs based in Indonesia, which are ELAW Indonesia, debtWATCH Indonesia, Perkumpulan Boemi, KRuHA (People’s Coalition on Right to Water), and BIGS (Bandung Institute Governance Studies); met ADB’s Southeast Asia Department in their headquarter, Manila, to raise our concern. There were four ADB’s officers who met the group. They are Senior NGO and Civil Society Specialist (Syarifah Aman-Wooster), Project Officer for ICWRM (Chris I. Morris), Environmental Engineer (Mohammed Nasimul Islam); and Social Development Specialist (Mio Oka).

In that opportunity, the NGOs asked for clarification of loan proposal, information disclosure, and public consultation that should involve potential affected people and other related stakeholders. During the discussion regarding environment category, Mohammed Nasimul Islam, stated “It does not really a matter at the end whether it is category A or category B, as long as we’ve done what needs to be done.”

While the Environment Policy of ADB on para. 54 stated that “A project’s environment assessment category is determined by the category of its most environmentally sensitive component, including both direct and indirect impacts.”  and para. 55 also stated that “The process of determining a project’s environment category is initiated by the regional department sector division, which prepares a project environment screening checklist, taking into account the type, size, and location of the proposed project.”  

The NGOs put a critique upon Nasimul’s statement, since his statement was conflicting to ADB’s policy. NGOs also disagree with his statement considering that the project will be affecting more than 9 million people who live in 7 districts and 2 cities around the river.

Status of ADB loan and grant for ICWRMIP has been starting since 2004. It started since there was a grant agreement in amount 1 million USD for preliminary research for this project (TA-4381 INO: Integrated Citarum Water Resources Management). Further, there were series of grant mechanisms until there was loan agreement for 500 million USD (Multi-Tranche Financing Facility: 37049-01), dated 4 December 2008.[1]

Loan allocation for the first phase of ICWRMIP will be used, one among projects, for West Tarum Canal Rehabilitation (WTC). WTC itself is a canal 68,3km in length, which used the water from Citarum River to be used as the main resources for irrigation purpose, industrial purpose, and house hold needs along Karawang, Bekasi, and Metropolitan Jakarta. First phase amounted 50 million USD, which is part of 500 million USD in total of ICWRMIP loan.

Involuntary Resettlement Policy vs Involuntary Resettlement Plan

One of Indonesia Government duty in order to get loan approval from ADB is to make Resettlement Plan for Phase I ICWRMIP which is meant to rehabilitate the WTC.

This Resettlement Plan should comply to ADB policies, and among them are Involuntary Resettlement Policy,1995 and Public Communication Policy, 2003.[2] On 11 August 2008, ADB has published ICWRMIP Resettlement Plan submitted by GoI in ADB website in order to get inputs from Indonesian citizens.

ARUM criticize[3] the RP draft, and submitted the analysis to ADB Operation Department, and also to Board of Directors ADB on November 2008, which was re-submitted in the Annual Meeting of ADB in Bali, May 2009. Some of ARUM findings on the RP draft are:

• This canal is passing through three districts: Karawang District, Bekasi District, and Bekasi City, in which there will be thousands of people affected, resettled by this project. Involuntary Resettlement Plan Draft for West Tarum Canal rehabilitation has identified that there will be 872 households displaced. ARUM considered that the identification of affected is not supposedly using household, but it is supposed in terms of individually/person affected. Consequently, potential affected people will much more than 872 people.

• Mechanism ambiguity in considering land scarcity and ownership issues.
• No guarantee in restoring livelihood to people affected, since there are gaps in measuring compensation. Social Implementation Strategy is unclear, and unacceptable.
• Resettlement process is vague and not participatory.
• Inadequate information disclosure for public and space for consultation, especially for families listed as affected. One of our findings is that even the local government did not acknowledge the detail of the project, and also the resettlement plan at all.

Public Consultation

ADB stated that in the first phase of PPTA (Project Preparatory Technical Assistance) ICWRMIP reported that they have done “beneficiary consultation meeting”  held on June 14, 2005 in Bekasi for stakeholders in downstream areas and attended by 25 people, and also 16 Juni 2005 in Bandung for stakeholders in upstream area, attended by 38 participants. Inputs from both consultations were analyzed by their team and being represented in front of what so called as stakeholders in River Basin Area in a meeting dated 4 and 5 July 2005 in Jakarta, attended by 71 participants. ARUM doesn’t get a proper explanation from Operation Department for this project upon the basis of selection these participants. ARUM also found false signatures in the attendance list.

There was no genuine public participation since the beginning of Environment study. The whole process of documents include the environmental analysis/impact document should have informed to all stakeholders and public widely. The spirit is actually written in the PCP (Public Communication Policy) of ADB[4]: “…ADB will proactively share its knowledge and information about its works with stakeholders and the public at large”. Nevertheless, the current fact is, only a very few people involved in this process. At least, this has been admitted by ADB through its document. Three ‘beneficiary consultant meeting” executed in 14 June 2005, 16 June, and 4 – 5 July, 2005 in Bekasi, Bandung and Jakarta which were attended by 134 participants in total. This of course is far from adequate which comply with the spirit in ADB PCP.

Public Information Disclosure where people could accessed easily to documents related to their live and livelihood, especially for direct affected people is firmly regulated in PCP paragraph 74 and 75, and also Environmental Policy in paragraph 64. But, our experience proved that important documents ONLY EVENTUALLY DISCLOSED-and ONLY through ADB Website if there was demand. We experienced that even though the documents have been disclosed in the web, there was no single complete document being properly acknowledged by the people affected-directly and indirectly. Although those have been published in the web, still those document and people in charge to this project failed to answer basic questions raised. Such as, who will gain the benefit? What is exactly to be done in this main river? How will it be managed? Who will take the responsibility and full in charge? Among all these questions, documents availability in website taken as information available will shut affected people’s access upon those documents, regarding that not all of those people are having the access to the computer and internet.

CURRENT CONDITION: Submission to OSPF

Our last meeting with Chris Morris (ADB Project Officer of ICWRMIP at that time), in Bandung, June 2009 was ended with the team’s promises to give several not-yet-disclosed documents, and one of the document finally given is the Review Mission updates ADB for this project, dated 30 June 2009. This document stated that WTC resettlement will only going to be implemented in 2010. But, our field monitoring has proved that at least there were 3 times displacements done since July 2009, by violating principals in Involuntary Resettlement policy of ADB. The displacement also displaced numbers of people who are listed in the list of affected people in the disclosed document. Based on the findings, we have submitted our submission to OSPF in 8 December 2009, and being acknowledged and registered 11 December 2009. On 2011 we resubmitted to OSPF.

Progress at OCRP is as follow:

Progress Report

[1] Source: http://www.adb.org/Projects/summaries.asp?query=&browse=1&ctry=INO&sctr=3000&sctr=3800&sctr=3900&stat=1&type=1&type=2&type=3&type=4

[2] Up until now, ADB have made 35 policies, for complete one can be seen in http://www.adb.org/Development/policies.asp

[3] The report was made by L. Diana Gultom (debtWATCH Indonesia), Arimbi Heroepoetri (E-LAW Indonesia) and Hamong Santono (KRuHA), and supported technically (edited) by BIC. Rezki Wibowo from Transparency International Indonesia supported the Anti Corruption Framework, while Prof. Wijanto Hadipuro from Soegijapranata University supported IWRM analysis.

[4] Public Communication Policy (PCP) ADB, 2005