Yuli Tri Suwarni – The government has allocated Rp 1.14 trillion (US$125 million) in the state budget this year to build 86 rented flats for members of the Indonesian Military (TNI) and National Police (Polri) across the archipelago, a minister said.

Speaking in Bandung, West Java, on Friday, Public Housing Minister Djan Faridz said that the development of the flats would especially be prioritized for TNI and Polri personnel in West Java, Jakarta, Central Java and Maluku.

"These are part of the target of building a total of 380 blocks of flats from 2010 to 2014," Djan said after officially launching two blocks of flats for members of the Military Regional Command III Siliwangi on Jl. Sumarsana, jointly with Army chief of staff Gen. Pramono Edhi Wibowo.

He said that the two flats launched on Friday comprised 140 houses to be rented to soldiers for Rp 150,000 to Rp 300,000 per month.

He added that the Public Housing Ministry had built nine twin blocks of flats in 2009 and 26.5 twin blocks of flats the following year for TNI members. "Apart from that we also build special flats for university students, workers and pesantren (Islamic boarding schools)," Djan said.

He said the government needed to build 13 million public housing units, of which 4.8 million were aimed at rehabilitating slum areas. He also said he had a target of improving some 1.5 million slum areas across the country by 2014.

Pramono said that so far only some 47 percent of members of the TNI had already had houses to live in. He also said that flats could help TNI personnel assigned in Bandung better control their spending. Otherwise, they had to spend up to Rp 7 million per year to rent a house.

"That way they will be able to save money to buy their own houses, where when they are retired they need not continue staying in official residences," said Pramono, adding that many of the TNI's official houses were still occupied by retired soldiers.