Ronna Nirmala – Tired of years of mismanagement and costly, but ineffective, cleanup efforts, Jakarta Deputy Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama announced an end to the hiring of private contractors to clean the capital's heavily polluted rivers on Wednesday.

The capital spends some Rp 90 billion a year on contracts with private companies to dredge Jakarta's 13 waterways with little effect on their cleanliness, Basuki said.

Most of Jakarta's rivers are heavily polluted by industrial waste, raw sewage and floating islands of litter that contribute to the capital's annual flooding issues.

"Floods are actually a matter of mismanagement and we will repair that," he said. "It is currently difficult to see whether these private companies actually clean the rivers. What we can see is that the rivers remain dirty and if we ask them they always argue that they had just cleaned it yesterday and that the garbage just arrived."

Jakarta government will drop the budget for private companies and instead pay local residents who live along the waterways to keep the rivers clean, Basuki said.

"If the river is 400 kilometers long, we will assign one kilometer to one person," he explained, adding that the residents could receive some Rp 2 million a month. The scheme could create new jobs for residents and allow the government to hold individuals accountable, Basuki explained.

Governor Joko Widodo and deputy Basuki rose a wave of populist support into office, besting incumbent Fauzi Bowo in a heated runoff election. The pair have spent their first month in office on a reformist kick, threatening to fire inactive bureaucrats and soliciting input from local residents in a move that has inspired cheers from Jakarta's citizens and jeers from some former leaders and city experts.