40% of Tangerang residents lack IDs

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)