Land Acquisition Issue Limits Development of Indonesia's Toll Roads
In the past ten years, Indonesia has seen its toll roads expand by about 300 kilometers only. In 2004, the total length of the country's toll road network was 611 kilometers. In 2014, it reached a length of 918 kilometers. This slow growth of toll road development is alarming as the lack of quality and quantity of infrastructure is one of the major bottlenecks for Indonesia's economic development. (as subsequent high logistics costs put off investors). The difficulty of land acquisition is possibly the most notorious stumbling-block for infrastructure development.
The transition from the authoritarian Suharto regime to the era of Reformation in the late 1990s implied that the people's voices have gained influence at the expense of the (central) government. One of the negative side effects of this transition, with regard to infrastructure development, is that it has become a time-consuming and costly affair to acquire land from local communities. Various infrastructure projects have been idle or canceled due to such land disputes. In order to smoothen this situation, the government of Indonesia issued Law No.2/2012 on Land Procurement for Development in the Public Interest (known as the 'Land Acquisition Act') in 2012. This new law aims to speed up the land acquisition process by dealing with the revocation of land rights to serve public interest, putting time limits on each procedural phase and by ensuring safeguards for land-right holders. However, up to date the government has never used this new law due to a lack of leadership and decisiveness. As a result, land acquisition remains a time-consuming and costly stumbling- block for infrastructure development.
Of Indonesia's current total toll road length of 918 kilometers, 38 was constructed by the government, while the remaining 880 was constructed by the private sector and state-owned companies.
Data from Indonesia's Ministry of Public Works indicate that Indonesia's current total (non-toll) road network numbers 38,400 kilometers in length.