TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - State-owned railway company Kereta Api Indonesia or KAI will seek for loans to finance light rail train or LRT project that will connect Jakarta and Bekasi. KAI will seek for loans once the government issues a presidential regulation naming KAI as the project investor.

“The capital will mostly be generated from loans if the [project] is assigned to the KAI,” the KAI president director Edi Sukmoro said yesterday at Gambir Station in Jakarta.

The loan amount sought by the KAI will depend on the project’s financing scheme. The government has planned capital injection to KAI as an initial outlay amounting to Rp5.6 trillion of the overall project cost of Rp23 trillion.

The government had earlier said it would name the KAI as the investor of Jakarta-Bekasi LRT project. The proposed appointment was aimed at circumventing the high cost of the project in order not to burden the state budget (APBN).

Edi claimed that the KAI is capable of becoming the investor in the project, citing that the project that will pass through East Bekasi, Cibubur and Dukuh Atas is profitable. Edi, however, said that the company would need a sovereign guarantee.

The KAI plans to issue bonds this year, expecting to generate Rp2 trillion in the process. According to Edi, the money will not be used to finance Jakarta-Bekasi LRT project. “To strengthen cash flow, to execute assignments from the government,” Edi said. He assured that the company’s cash flow would not be affected by it being named the investor in the LRT project.

In early February, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said that the government had several options to finance Jakarta-Bekasi LRT project. The options include providing a sovereign guarantee in the form of public service obligation (PSO) or LRT ticket subsidies once the service is rolled out.

According to Edi, the PSO will be imposed in the first 12 years of the LRT operations. The PSO would be implemented for the economic feasibility of the project.

KHAIRUL ANAM