For centuries Jakarta has been plagued by floods because of its geographical position. For centuries the rainy season has begun in the same month every year. And for centuries Jakarta residents and local authorities have prepared themselves for the annual deluge long before the rainy season sweeps the city, of course.

But to the disbelief of many, as disclosed by a City senior official, Fauzi Bowo's administration started flood preparations only after the rains started pouring down upon this city.

There is an Indonesia saying, Sedia payung sebelum hujan, which means, "Prepare your umbrella before it rains". But Jakarta authorities apparently only started to look for where they left their umbrella once the rising waters reached their ankles.

Budi Widiantoro, deputy head of the city's Public Works Agency, said recently the agency would dredge 16 sections of river across the city to minimize the impact of this season's floods. Unfortunately, these projects will only start this month and be completed by December.

Budi's remark gives the impression that flooding is hardly a problem for Jakarta. Rain will pour down only after the local government has fully prepared for the annual natural phenomenon.

Jakarta's administration has not taken other meaningful preventive measures either, such as cleaning out the smaller canals along roadways, usually clogged with all sorts of debris.

We are all aware that the annual flooding is unavoidable: The city's efforts cannot completely prevent, only mitigate, the consequences of the deluges that often spark massive losses affecting both individuals and public property.

Still, we do hope taxpayers' money allocated for the programs designed to mitigate floods will not be turned into pointless projects thanks to a sluggish city bureaucracy.

So we regret that flood-mitigating projects such as river dredging and smaller canal clean-ups have not started even though residents are already beginning to feel the effects of the season's first downpours.

The deputy chair of Jakarta's Legislative Council's Commission D for development, Muhayar Rustamudin, said the administration had managed to spend only about 50 percent of the funds allocated for flood mitigation – Rp 813 billion (US$76.69 million) all told – by mid-October.

It seems that the administration has not learned from its previous failures that any degree of precipitation causes problems in the capital. Small difficulties easily become gnarly problems, such as magnified traffic congestion after puddles, even ponds, dot roads across the city.

Governor Fauzi and his staff know full well that this problem has been brought on by poor maintenance of the drainage systems along the roads that facilitate the rainwater draining quickly into nearby rivers.

Perhaps the administration thinks it is no big deal, ignoring that water on the roads causes greater congestion, annoys and endangers motorists and causes asphalt to deteriorate more rapidly, raising road-maintenance costs.

We cannot brook the argument that bureaucratic procedures, including the tender process, need time. Tenders take time, but the real question is, why is the bureaucracy always several steps behind in their planning? Why not start the process earlier so these projects can finish before the advent of the rainy season?

We wonder why the tender for the river-dredging projects could not have been implemented earlier. Ideally such projects should have been finished now when the rains are beginning to pour down on the capital.

If the dredgings, slated to kick off early this month, get implemented without any hitches, they will finish in December when many fear floods are likely to have already inundated parts of the city. If that happens, such projects will miss the mark and fail to ease the misery of flood victims.

We hope the administration will work harder to complete all flood-related projects as soon as possible so they might significantly ease the impact of the floods.

No less important is the establishing of an early-warning system to prevent casualties, an effective evacuation system and better temporary shelters and accommodation for flood victims, usually numbering in the tens of thousands.

We also hope the city will go ahead with its longer-term flood-mitigation projects such as speeding up the development of the Eastern Flood Canal and relocating squatters living along river banks.

But we do not expect to see any such improvements in the near future. Most likely, city leaders will only blame Mother Nature when floods devastate this city in the coming months.