The city administration will open a tender for the expansion of Bantar Gebang garbage dump site before the end of this month following a deadlock over the land acquisition process.

The administration decided to hold a tender for the 2.3-hectare extension project because land owners had demanded the administration buy their land at three times the existing tax-based property price, Governor Fauzi Bowo said.

"The winners will be responsible for the land acquisition. We hope we can start construction by June," Fauzi said Wednesday.

"The total amount of investment required for this project is Rp 140 billion (around US$ 15 million) per 1,000 tons of (capacity added for) daily waste," he said.

The decision to hold a tender was based on presidential decree no 67, issued in 2005, the city's assistant secretary for development, Nurfakih Wirawan, said. The decree stipulates that regional heads can work with private companies in procurement proceedings for infrastructure projects.

The tender would be announced online, Fauzi said, because he wanted to deal an with experienced international company that can work with a local company.

To hold the tender, he said, the administration would consult agencies who were familiar with the procedure.

"We'll appoint BPM PKUD (Bureau of Capital Investment and Regional Monetary Management) as the administration's executing agency in the procurement process," he said.

Jakarta Sanitary Agency head Eko Bharuna said there were around eight investors who had expressed interest in the project. The investors were from Japan, Korea, Australia and Singapore. He added that the winning tender's contract would have a shelf life of 15 years, with reassessment once every five years.

The administration had also discussed the new dumping fees under the future partners which were expected to improve the site's waste management significantly, Fauzi said .

The administration could only pay the future partners some Rp 103,000 per ton of managed waste, Eko said, which was far less than the US$42 calculated in a study.

"We'll announce the figure in our tender offer so they understand our (limited) budget," he said.

Fauzi hopes to get carbon credit from the waste management at Bantar Gebang, "but we'll have to work in cooperation with the Environment Ministry," he said.

Located in Bekasi, Bantar Gebang dump covers an area of around 108 hectares. The most recent data showed it received more than 6,000 tons of waste from Jakarta every day.

The Jakarta administration made efforts to reduce Bantar Gebang's load by building another waste management site in the Cakung-Cilincing area, spanning North and East Jakarta.

The Sanitary Agency also plans to establish three to four other waste management sites around Jakarta. Each of the sites is expected to process between 800 and 1,000 tons of waste per day.

When asked about a delayed payment of Rp 3 billion in tipping fees for Bekasi administration, the governor said he had solved the problem.

"I asked the City Secretary to pay the fee. The delay was due to the late budget discussion," he said.