Jakarta business executives prefer staying at hotel during floods

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Business executives in flood-hit Jakarta at the end of their working day now prefer to retire to hotels closest to their offices rather than risk being trapped in flood-related traffic jams or other obstacles on their way to their own homes.

The risk of running into inconvenience, difficulty or trouble in Jakarta's streets has considerably increased since incessant rains over the past three days causing flooding in many parts of the Indonesian capital.

"Our hotel's occupancy rate has increased following the heavy rains and floods during the past two days. Businesss executives are reluctant to brave the rains and floods. So, after work hours, they check in at hotels," Sahid Jaya hotel public relations manager Megasari Rustianty said here.

She said more than 70 percent of Sahid Jaya's 670 rooms were booked during the past two days while previously occupancy only averaged 60 percent.

The business executives who actually live in Kelapa Gading, Kemang, Kwitang, Setiabudi, Mampang, Pesanggrahan, and Kampung Melayu areas checked in at the hotel without making reservations, she said

Other hotels in Central Jakarta's business districts also saw an increase in their occupancy rates.

"The same thing happened two years ago when wide areas of the capital's territory were inundated," Megasari said.

It was reported from Surabaya on Friday subscribers of state telecommunication company PT Telkom and its cellular telephone provider Telkomsel could not contact phone numbers in Jakarta on Friday when most parts of the capital city were inundated by floods.

East Java Telkom's communication manager Djadi Soegiarto blamed the telecommunication disruption on the Jakarta floods.

Vital telecommunication installations in the Semanggi area in Central Jakarta were submerged in flood waters so they could not function properly.

Meanwhile, a political observer at Gajah Mada University in Yogyakarta, Cornelays, suggested that the center of the Indonesian government be moved from Jakarta to a location that could not be severely affected by annual floods.

"Perhaps we should pursue the late president Soekarno's idea to move the center of the government from Jakarta to either Palangkaraya (Central Kalimantan) or Palu (Central Sulawesi) or former president Soeharto's plan to relocate the central government to the Jonggol area in West Java," he told ANTARA News from Yogyakarta.

But in Cornelays' own view, the center of Indonesia's administration should be moved to Banten province where Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta International airport is located.