60 official cars stolen over past two years

60 official cars stolen over past two years

JAKARTA (JP): Sixty cars belonging to the city administration have disappeared over the past two years, an official said on Wednesday.

"The 60 cars are really missing. They've been stolen," the deputy governor for administrative affairs, Abdul Kahfi, said during a media conference at City Hall to present the findings of the city's Reform Implementation and Control Team.

"The number of missing vehicles includes seven of the city's vehicles which were stolen December 1999," he said.

The seven vehicles belonged to the City Forestry Agency, the South Jakarta Office of Social Political Affairs, the North Jakarta Civilian Defense Headquarters, the district of Kebon Jeruk and the subdistricts of Pondok Labu, Duri Pulo and Cempaka Baru.

Six of the vehicles were Toyota Kijang minivans, while an Isuzu Panther minivan was stolen from the Kebon Jeruk district.

"We will impose strict administrative sanctions on the users of the cars for their carelessness. They will also have to repay the city for the cars, either in one lump sum or in installments.

"We don't know the total amount of the loss yet because we are still making calculations. The ages of the cars varied, with the oldest being from 1991 and the newest from 1996," Kahfi said.

Kahfi said the city administration would calculate the estimated prices of the stolen vehicles by assessing vehicles in three mayoralties.

"We will take the highest price for a car of a certain year from the three mayoralties as the amount that ... has to be repaid," he said.

Currently, a new Toyota Kijang minivan costs more than Rp 100 million (US$14,290), and a used one costs between Rp 40 million and Rp 60 million, accordingly to its production year.

Kahfi said that besides the stolen vehicles, the team had found 35 other cases involving city officials.

"The team found 23 disciplinary cases and 12 cases of overdue taxes worth some Rp 4 billion, some Rp 1.6 billion of which has been repaid by the city officials," he said.

He also said the team found 319 companies which had not paid operational fees and taxes totaling some Rp 218 billion during the 1998/1999 fiscal year.

"Some of the companies have paid some Rp 113 billion to the city. We will pursue the other companies to make them fulfill their duties," Abdul said. (05)