TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - President Joko Widodo's dream to have the trans-Java toll road in operation by 2018 could come to nothing. At present, there is still 615 kilometers to be completed. Many of the nine concession holders to operate the toll road have already thrown in the towel.

By the Lebaran holiday, the 117-kilometer Cikampek-Palimanan section will be in operation, but many other sections of the giant project have yet to be completed, and some have not even been started because of land acquisition problems. For example, in the Pemalang-Batang and Batang-Semarang sections, only 3 percent of the land has been acquired.

This has been the specter haunting the completion of the trans-Java toll road for years. For example, the acquisition of the land for the Cikampek-Palimanan section took four years. The reason for these long delays is that the government had to negotiate with every single landowner.

The government does have a 'weapon' in its arsenal to acquire land, in the form of Law No. 2/2012 on Government Land for the Public Interest. However, this 'weapon' has turned out to be ineffective, because even though funds are available to acquire the land, it has not gone ahead because of various obstacles. One of these being the multiple ownership of certain areas.

Land acquisition is an obligation of the government. In the agreements to operate the toll roads, it is clearly stated that the government is obliged to acquire all the land. The government is hostage to these agreements even though there are some businessmen who ignore their obligations. They often use the excuse that they are unable to obtain bank loans before the project land has been acquired, yet the government is unable to revoke the concessions owned by the businessmen.

This has led to the construction of parts of the trans-Java toll road to hang for almost a decade. However the people, especially entrepreneurs, desperately need the toll road given that national highways are unable to accommodate the increasing traffic load. One of the worst problems is the Java north coast road, which is often in disrepair, necessitating Rp1 trillion in maintenance every year. The damage to this road also causes huge losses for road users.

In the remaining three years, the government must act and complete the obligation to acquire land. Speedy land acquisition is the key to completing the construction of the toll road. Besides allocating adequate State Budget funds, the government should work with regional administrations to speed up land acquisition. Without an all-out effort, very likely President Jokowi's target will not be met.

President Jokowi also needs to evaluate the auctions for other toll road sections. The land for these sections must be acquired in its entirety before the tenders begin. This way, the government can select tender participants who really have good reputations as well as sufficient funding and competent technicians.

This would also allow the government to avoid selling off concessions. This practice is possible because the amount in guarantee funds the holders of toll road concessions must pay the government is very small, only 1 percent of the investment's value. They can obtain far more money by selling the concession. (*)