11,886 public phones damaged by vandals: Official

11,886 public phones damaged by vandals: Official

JAKARTA (JP): About one-third, or nearly 12,000, of all coin-
operated pay phones in the capital and its surrounding areas are
vandalized each month, an official with PT Telekomunikasi
Indonesia (Telkom)'s Greater Jakarta office revealed on Thursday.

The head of the office's public relation department, Thomik
Armawan, said the latest data from May showed 11,886 of the
32,036 coin-operated public telephones installed by Telkom
throughout Jakarta, Tangerang and Bekasi were out of order due to
vandalism.

"The public is still not concerned (about the care and
existence of pay phones) which were installed for public use,"
Thomik told The Jakarta Post.

Telkom officials said the vandalism of public pay phones
included damage caused by efforts to pry open the cash boxes
placed inside the phones, the insertion of objects into the coin
slots, the stealing of the phone booths and the theft of the
phones' handsets.

He did not disclose the estimated cost for maintaining the
public phones, but said his office rarely earned a profit from
the phones. Such acts of vandalism, he added, had taken place for
years and seemed unlikely to end.

The acting head of the public telephone division at Telkom's
South Jakarta office, Nursalam, said the high frequency of
vandalism of public pay phones in his area had forced his office
to reduce the number of telephones it installed.

"We temporarily have had to reduce the (number of telephone)
units because the cost of spare parts is expensive," Nursalam
said via phone.

Currently, the South Jakarta Telkom office operates 4,476 pay
phones, slightly fewer than the 5,000 units it operated last
year, he said.

A public relations official at Telkom's East Jakarta office,
Iran A.R., claimed his area suffered the highest rate of
vandalism in the capital.

"In South Jakarta and West Jakarta the rate of vandalism is
not that high, but in East Jakarta, oh dear ... ," Iran sighed.

He could not give an exact figure, but said that every time
his office fixed one damaged pay phone it found eight more
vandalized.

Iran argued that the high rate of vandalism in East Jakarta
was due to the vast slums located in the area.

An official at Telkom's West Jakarta office said he had
proposed to his colleagues at Telkom's other offices in Greater
Jakarta to stop repairing vandalized pay phones, instead
installing new pay phones in areas where vandalism was less
likely to occur.

"That will make (the vandals) learn their lesson," said the
official, who asked not be named.

He said his staff responsible for repairing the damaged units
had nearly given up because of what they saw as the futility of
their efforts. "I have to give my men some encouragement to do
(the telephone maintenance), which they have to do over and over
again."

In the first six months of this year, the West Jakarta Telkom
office has found 11 telephone units and 65 cash boxes stolen, he
said.

But Thomik stated Telkom would not stop providing adequate
facilities for the public. "We are committed to repairing (the
broken units), in accordance with our motto 'customers first,'"
Thomik said.

He added that so far in July, Telkom staff in Jakarta and its
surrounding areas had repaired 10,201 broken pay phones, with
some 1,685 additional units scheduled for repair.

"The availability is 94.86 percent of single-coin pay
telephones and 94.73 percent for the multicoin pay phones,"
Thomik said, adding that single-coin telephones use Rp 100 coins,
while multicoin pay phones accept almost all coins.

"The existence of public telephones is still very much needed
despite the (increasing) use of cellular phones and the
mushrooming telecommunications kiosks," Thomik said.

However, people who wish to use a pay phone are frequently
frustrated in their efforts to find one in working order. (08)