40% of Tangerang residents lack IDs

TANGERANG (JP): Nearly half of the 1.31 million Tangerang residents do not have identification cards (ID), as they believe the processing requirements are too expensive, an official said.

Approximately 40 percent or 502,110 Tangerang residents are affected.

"Many people still think that it's expensive to obtain an ID, even though in reality processing only costs Rp 1,000 per ID," Achmad Kosasih, head of Tangerang mayoralty's administrative affairs, said on Monday.

Kosasih said the high price of IDs was caused mainly by a preference for the use of middlemen, instead of coming to the subdistrict offices themselves.

ID processing through middlemen was not quicker as there was usually a long list of other applicants, he said.

Some residents were reluctant to obtain local IDs because in many cases they retained IDs from residences outside Tangerang.

He estimated that many residents would have just turned 17 and were eligible to possess their own IDs.

Kosasih predicted that the number of people intending to process IDs would increase ahead of the forthcoming polls.

"Voters intending to register to take part in the election will be asked to show their IDs."

He emphasized that if residents had complete personal data the application would only take one day to complete. (41/jun)