Pontianak New Mayor

Read:

You have won the mayor election in Pontianak city, the capital city of Kalimantan Barat
Province. As a new mayor in a 107.82 Km2 city with the population of 550,304 people, you are
facing the situations and problems in Pontianak. You have to perform excellently so that you can
expect to win your second period in the next five year election.

Decide and Write:

The problems you are facing at this moment are:

The electricity supply

The people are angry, the electricity is consistently being shut down. The PLN (Perusahaan
Listrik Negara), the state electricity provider, can do the electricity shut down for the whole
month. The shut down can take six to eight hours a day. The shut downs are planned as they
publish the shut down schedules in the newspaper. Businesses complained and investors do not
dare to invest in Pontianak even though they are very interested in doing that in Pontianak.

Rank of priority: ____ Solution: _______________________________________________

The clean water supply

Even though the longest river in Indonesia, Sungai Kapuas, crosses Pontianak, The city is still
facing a shortage of clean water supply. It is very common to see people taking bath and wash
their clothing in the river. It is also very common to see people behind the city stadium queuing
for water. The people do not even question the source of water. The water of Sungai Kapuas is
also contaminated by dangerous metals and substances like mercury which is used in the process
in the gold mining in the other regions in the province.

Rank of priority: ____ Solution: _______________________________________________

Drugs

Drugs is a threat to Pontianak people, especially for the youths. The drug dealers run the dirty
business in several areas. The most famous area is near the Kapuas river on one side of the city.
Even the police needs to be in full force to do investigations in that area because drug dealers are
protected by the people. There was a situation where the police were chased away by the people
because they got in the area to do investigations.

Rank of priority: ____ Solution:

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Flood

The city development seems to ignore the good city management. It can be seen from the
narrowing the water canal in the city and the cloaked water in the ditches. If it is raining heavily
for one hour, the people can see that the main streets are flooded already. The people’s houses
are flooded as well. In the city side, we can see houses which are flooded for more than 1 metre.
This situation happens annually in the city and the flood brings diseases like cholera and
meningitis.

Rank of priority: ____ Solution:

__________________________________________________________

The smoke from burning in land clearing

The land clearing for the purpose of paddy planting is still very traditional in Kalimantan Barat
province. Twice a year, the people burn their land to clear it. The burning is not done by the
Pontianak people because the paddy fields are located outside the city like in the Kubu Raya
Region, Ketapang region, etc. the smoke causes dangerous diseases like the respiratory
infections. This is not only a local issue because the smoke also goes and pollutes the
neighboring countries like Malaysia and Singapore.

Rank of priority: ____ Solution:

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