Communication to Find Water Intake Location within Public Private Partnership between Tangerang Government Authority and PT Aetra Air Tangerang

This article aimed to explore an effective communicative planning approach in infrastructure development using the PPP scheme, incorporating the complementary concepts of communicative planning and critical pragmatism. From 2005 to 2007, an epidemic disease severely threatened the District of Tangerang, which was found to be caused by poor water quality and improper clean water management. The limited local government budget and capability was a double issue that encouraged the participation of the private sector in building a drinking water infrastructure by using a public private partnership (PPP) scheme. One of the scopes of the project was finding the best tapping intake location for the Drinking Water Supply System (SPAM – Sistem Penyediaan Air Minum). Rather than being simply an infrastructure project, PPP is a complex field of power relations among actors and groups, since it is implemented across institutions and jurisdictions. It took three years of intensive communication between governments, private parties, and lawmakers from the district, the provincial, and the national level. Both primary and secondary data were analyzed with a qualitative approach to gain a deeper understanding of the case study. The result showed that to make the PPP scheme successful, the planners involved in the PPP team dealt with power imbalances by creating networks with the other actors and making them engaged in bargaining processes to reach the desired agreements.