I am not selling Bali out': Pastika - Jakarta Post

Bali Governor Made Mangku Pastika has responded to mounting public criticism over his controversial letter permitting the massive reclamation project in Benoa Bay by declaring that he did not sell the island out to big investors.
“I am doing it solely for the future of this island,” he said during a gathering with local journalists on Friday.
Pastika pointed out that vocational schools and universities on the island had churned out thousands of fresh graduates on an annual basis. Without employment opportunities, however, these young graduates would only increase the unemployment rate, and, in the longer term, contribute to the island’s poverty level.
The reclamation project and the development of various tourism facilities on the reclaimed land would create at least 200,000 new job opportunities, Pastika estimated.
“I have ensured in the permit letter that the investor and managing company are obliged to employ local workers,”
Pastika pointed out that once all the facilities, which would include a giant theme park, hotels and convention centers, a sport stadium, an international hospital, and a planned F1 circuit, reach their operational stage, the local administration would enjoy daily revenue from taxes amounting to Rp 5 billion.
“In five years, not only will we be providing more jobs to the growing pool of fresh graduates but we will also significantly increase provincial revenue, which in turn, would enable the local administration to fund an increasing number of pro people programs,” Pastika detailed.
Pro-people programs, including free universal healthcare services, financial aid of Rp. 1 billion each for poor villages as well as home renovation packages for low-income families, are the cornerstones of Pastika’s administration. He funded the programs by pursuing a two-pronged strategy: Increasing provincial revenue and implementing cost-cutting measures at provincial agencies previously known for their sluggish and oversized bureaucratic structures.
While the pro-people programs, locally known as Bali Mandara, are widely praised and won Pastika his second term in last May’s gubernatorial election, his policy on reclamation has drawn a growing chorus of rejection from various corners of society.
Pastika issued a permit for PT Tirta Wahana Bali International to reclaim and manage an area of 883 hectares in Benoa Bay after receiving two supporting documents: a feasibility research document from Udayana University’s team of experts and a recommendation letter from Bali Legislative Council (DPRD).
The reclamation would take place on Pudut Isle, a tiny island partially submerged due to severe abrasion, and the area surrounding it.
Environmentalists and scholars feared that the reclamation would inflict massive, irreversible ecological damages that could affect not only Benoa Bay but also other regions in Bali. Tourism operators and associations, currently plagued by low occupancy rates and paralyzing tariff wars, accused that the reclamation would further aggravate the island’s oversupply of rooms, thus, rejected the project mainly on the basis of self-preservation. In recent days, the people of Benoa had begun voicing their rejections to the project.
Pastika attributed the growing opposition to widespread misperception triggered by the local media’s sensationalist approach toward the issue. He pointed out the “Bali Not For Sale” slogan, the common battle cry among activists opposing the reclamation, as an example of the misperception.
“Who put Bali on sale? The investor would not get any ownership rights over the reclaimed land. Those 883 hectares of reclaimed land will be the property of the provincial government, the property of the Balinese people. The investor will only get the right to manage it for a specified and limited period,”
“Bali will see its territory expanded. Instead of watching hectares of rice fields disappear, we will have an investor who builds tourism facilities on a reclaimed land,”
Pastika also pointed out that out of 883 hectares of reclaimed land, 400 hectares will be forested, 300 hectares will be allocated for public facilities and only 100 hectares will be used for tourism facilities.