South Kalimantan capital relocation a sudden decision: mayor

Banjarmasin, S Kalimantan (ANTARA) - Banjarmasin Mayor H Ibnu Sina opined that the decision to move the provincial capital from Banjarmasin City to Banjarbaru City was a sudden decision.

"We simply can say this transfer is a sudden decision," he said in Banjarmasin, Monday.

According to him, the Banjarmasin City Government that he lead for two periods until 2024, has never been involved until the law was processed and passed by the House of Representative of the Republic of Indonesia (DPR-RI) on February 15, 2022.

"We have never been asked, that's why I ask whose aspiration is this," Ibnu Sina pointed out.

What he knew was the agreed decision during the time of Governor H Rudy Ariffin and Deputy Governor H Rosehan NB (2005-2010) only to move the office center from Banjarmasin to Banjarbaru.

"In the provincial Medium Term Development Plan (RPJMD)document at that time it was only the relocation of the center of government, but not the provincial capital," he said.

Ibnu Sina stated that he was directly involved in the RPJMD decision, because he was a member of the legislature. "I was the chairman of Commission I who discussed the relocation of the South Kalimantan Provincial Government Office to Banjarbaru, so I understand very well, there is no relocation of the provincial capital," he said.

According to him, relocating the center of government is a common thing, but not with the status of provincial capital of South Kalimantan, because Banjarmasin is a historic city that has been the provincial capital for 495 years.

The decision to move the provincial capital anyway has urged the mayor considered to lodge judicial review to the Constitutional Court (MK).

"Indeed, there was a lot of encouragement for us to decide judicial review, the aspiration of the community, especially residents of Banjarmasin. I have ovserved in recent days there is a strong desire to take a legal action, either through judicial review or others," said Ibnu Sina.