Residents protest mounting garbage<\/p>\n
Ahmad Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
At least 100 residents of Penjaringan, North Jakarta, staged a
\ndemonstration at City Hall on Thursday to protest the lack of
\ncity action in removing the growing heaps of garbage in their
\nneighborhoods.<\/p>\n
The protesters, who arrived in four medium-sized buses,
\nunfurled posters and banners with slogans like, \"We want proof,
\nnot promises!\" and \"Bored to be ordinary people!\"<\/p>\n
Warjono, one of the representatives, demanded that the City
\nSanitary Agency remove garbage from at least three community
\nunits, where hundreds of residences are located in Penjaringan.<\/p>\n
\"We have cleaned up our neighborhood and collected the garbage
\n-- but it has not been taken away yet, and has been neglected for
\nalmost two weeks,\" Warjono said.<\/p>\n
He also asked the Jakarta city administration to help provide
\npowder to kill off the abundant mosquito larvae which have formed
\nto avoid an outbreak of dengue fever in the area.<\/p>\n
Another resident named Sagem complained that her neighborhood
\nnever received donations, such as food and clothes, from the
\nadministration during the earlier floods.<\/p>\n
The protest took place only two days after the City Sanitation
\nAgency officials announced that they had spent Rp 1 billion
\n(US$98,040) to clean up the piles of garbage left over from the
\nfloods.<\/p>\n
City Public Order Office head Firman Hutajulu, who received
\nsome of the protesters, promised that his office would deploy
\n2,000 officers to clean up the garbage and arm them with
\nmosquito-killing powder on Sunday.<\/p>\n
As the meeting ended, the protesters received Rp 1 million
\nfrom the city administration.<\/p>\n
\"This money was reimbursement for our bus rental fee. We
\nearlier borrowed money from the Islamic teaching group in our
\nneighborhood to get here,\" the group's organizer, Wignyo P.,
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
Separately, City Sanitary Agency deputy head Rama Boedi
\nadmitted that garbage in the Penjaringan could not be removed
\nquickly since was located far from the city's main garbage depot
\nBantar Gebang, Bekasi.<\/p>\n
\"Penjaringan is in the western part of North Jakarta, so it's
\npossible that their garbage could not have been transported\" in
\nthe first place, Rama told reporters.<\/p>\n
He had earlier claimed that the agency hired 83 private
\ngarbage trucks to collect the post-flood garbage,<\/p>\n
According to city records, however, that number of trucks
\nhired was only 57.<\/p>",
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