TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Public Works and People's Housing Ministry said the state incurs a loss of up to Rp30 trillion each year due to truck overloads. Of that amount, around Rp10 trillion to 15 trillion is the amount of loss from damaged national roads.
"For the national road alone the figure is roughly Rp10 trillion-15 trillion," the ministry's Directorate General of Highways director of road preservation Hedy Rahadia said in West Java on January 21.
From these conditions, Hedy said, the government spends around Rp45 trillion to 50 trillion each year for the maintenance and reconstruction of national roads.
This year, the government has earmarked Rp18 trillion for said purpose.
Hedy said that his department estimated there are 4.000 kilometer of roads that are damaged and in need of repair this year. He asserted that this is an urgent situation that needs to be addresses immediately to solve the problems in goods transportation overload.
The cost of maintenance and reconstruction will be reduced by up to Rp15 trillion if the overload problem is resolved. "If we can get rid of the overloading problem, we can lower it down to Rp35 trillion," he said.
Hedy said his department is ready to cooperate with the Transportation Ministry to address this issue, one way by ticketing vehicles caught loading cargos more than they are allowed.
Truckload measurements will be done simultaneously starting tomorrow today, January 22, at the Jakarta-Cikampek toll road, the Jakarta-Bogor-Ciawi toll road, and the 86th kilometer of the Tangerang-Merak toll road.
BUDIARTI UTAMI PUTRI
