By: Jeremiah Kogoya) *
President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) recorded 13 times visited Papua. A number of infrastructure developments began to intensify, starting from the construction of the Trans Papua route, the Youtefa Bridge, to the East Palapa Ring. The success of development in Tanah Papua is seen as a commitment by President Jokowi to equalize the welfare of the Indonesian people.
President Jokowi has officially taken office again, this means that the plan to continue accelerating development will resume immediately. If judging from the first reign, the former mayor of Solo has carved a variety of realization of development. Starting from the infrastructure sector, economy, industry, health, education as well as bureaucracy.
At the beginning of the first administration, President Jokowi and his cabinet had five important points that were included in the list of Development plans for the 2014-2019 period. The first point is the concentration on human resource development. Which will start from basic services to the people of Indonesia, including overcoming poverty, and also pressing the problem of social inequality in society.
The second concentration is concerned with the gap between regions, namely by improving connectivity in various regions so as to reduce the logistics budget. One of them is by building sea highway infrastructure. According to a number of news reports, this project is something to be proud of from the Jokowi-JK administration.
The third focus is on creating a plus for the sector, services, agriculture, as well as in manufacturing. Meanwhile, the fourth point is food security, energy, water and environmental preservation. For the last or fifth point is the stability of national security and elections. If the total is probable, the 5 targets have not been able to be fulfilled, but there is plenty of evidence of the success of the government. So this is indeed worthy of appreciation.
The most prominent evidence of success is in the infrastructure development sector. Among these are;
Development of a 4,330.07 kilometer trans Papua road project that can connect the provinces of Papua and the Province of West Papua. Which stretches from the city of Sorong to Merauke. The success of this second development is the most phenomenal. The Holtekamp Bridge or popular with the Youtefa Bridge. Apart from being a liaison and directly bordering with neighboring countries, Papua New Guinea. This bridge is also designed for tourist destinations.
This bridge makes it easier for people who want to go to the Koya or Arso area. Which reportedly will be the location of industrial development in the future. Not only that, the construction of the Youtefa bridge was able to summarize distance and time. What originally took 2.5 hours now is only 60 minutes, from Jayapura to Skouw. Including launching the flow of distribution of the needs of the surrounding community.
Another success is the construction of six infrastructure in the electricity sector. Namely, the Orya Genyem Hydroelectric Power Plant, the Mini Hydro Prafi Power Plant, the High Voltage Airways, and also the Genyem-Waena-Jayapura High Voltage Airways. Two later, Waena-Sentani Substation 20 Megavolt Ampere and Jayapura Substation with 20 Megavolt Ampere voltage, the last being the High Voltage Air Line (SUTT) with a strength of 70 kilo Volt Holtekamp-Jayapura with a length of 43.4 kilo meters of the circuit. The existence of this electricity development is expected to be able to help free the Papuans from the lack of energy supply.
On the other hand, the success of this development was followed by the completion of the Sentani Airport improvement. According to the news, this airport will become the biggest airport in Papua. And is used as the main link to the interior of Papua. Previously this location was first class airport. Then a number of renovations and revitalization of several facilities were carried out. Among other things, the extension of the runway, expanding the parking area, apron, and others. This is useful to support the target of becoming an international airport that was inaugurated in 2017 ago.
The Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing (PUPR) is also carrying out construction of the Indonesia – Papua New Guinea border road. Which starts from Merauke to Jayapura in Papua Province with a length of 1,098 kilometers. This border development is said to be President Joko Widodo’s plan to develop Indonesia from the periphery. By strengthening regions and villages, opening isolation in rural areas, reducing the cost of living, and not forgetting to improve the quality of life of the people.
These achievements are of course only a few that are able to be exposed. Even though there are so many targets that have been realized. Therefore, we need to fully surrender development to the Jokowi government in the next five years. Because, there is no doubt and anything else you need to worry about. Moreover, many parties are convinced that the country’s progress will soon be realized in his hands, including me.
) * Papuan student writer lives in Yogyakarta