Nurfika Osman – Poor sanitation habits have led to the large-scale contamination of the country's water supplies, which in turn has led to massive financial losses for the nation.
"Many people are not aware of the importance of sanitation," said Nugroho Tri Utomo, who heads the department overseeing drinking water and waste at the National Development Planning Board (Bappenas). "They still defecate outside in the open and continue to throw garbage into rivers."
Utomo said sanitation remained a massive challenge for the nation, with most people lacking awareness of the importance of proper sanitation.
About 70 million people out of a population of 230 million defecate in the open, he said, adding that many houses do not have septic tanks, or if they have a tank, it is not cleaned regularly.
This kind of behavior, Utomo said, has played a major role in the contamination of some 75 percent of the country's drinking water, which is proving costly.
"The worsening contamination means more [chemical] substances are needed to purify the water, which in turn forces water tariffs up," he said.
But the biggest cost, he added, is in terms of health. "Indonesia lost Rp 57 trillion [$6 billion] in 2008 due to health problems brought about by poor sanitation," he said.
Diseases such as diarrhea, dengue fever, typhus and cholera are strongly correlated with low sanitation standards. "Medical costs and losses due to time off work related to poor sanitation are costing our country," he said.
Utomo said data from Bappenas showed that some 100 cities in the country had urban drainage management problems. He also said Indonesia trailed only China and India in terms of sanitation problems.
"Sanitation should be the concern of all parties because this is a problem that affects everyone," he said. "We need to commit to better sanitation."
Utomo said the country had only recently started to pay attention to sanitation, and that some regions were now allocating more funds to the issue.
"Some regions have increased their budgets for sanitation to 4 percent [of the total budget]," he said, adding that many regions continue to lag with sanitation barely getting 1 percent of the budget.
Only 11 cities have proper access to sanitation, he said. These cities are Medan, Jakarta, Bandung, Cirebon, Banjarmasin, Yogyakarta, Solo, Denpasar, Makassar, Balikpapan and Blitar.
In 2006, the country established an interdepartment ad-hoc committee named the Sanitation Development Technical Team (TTPS), consisting of Bappenas, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Public Housing, the State Ministry for the Environment, the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Public Works.
Jakarta will host a three-day national conference on sanitation beginning on Tuesday aimed at accelerating sanitation development to fulfill basic services for all the nation's citizens.