ABRI personnel reployed to guard rice distribution
JAKARTA (JP): The city has started deploying soldiers and police officers to oversee rice distribution throughout Jakarta to ensure that the staple food reaches targeted city residents.
Governor Sutiyoso said on Wednesday that Armed Forces (ABRI) personnel were being stationed at locations where market operations, aimed at stabilizing rice prices, were being held.
"The presence of soldiers is to ensure that the market operations run as well as expected," he told reporters at his office.
He said he had asked Jakarta Military Commander Maj. Gen. Djadja Suparman on Tuesday to deploy at least two soldiers to guard each operation site following reports of insufficient security for rice trucks.
"One of the trucks containing five tons of rice departed shortly after being told that they would be looted. It had served only 20 customers," he said.
Djadja confirmed that his troops had started guarding the market operations which have been held jointly by various institutions, including the Ministry of Trade and Industry, the Ministry of Cooperatives and Small enterprises, the Ministry of Social Services and the city police.
City police deputy chief Brig. Gen. Sutanto said on Wednesday that police officers had been deployed to monitor the 5,000 metric tons of rice being distributed here daily through the Jakarta chapter of the State Logistics Agency (Dolog Jaya).
"We have found indications that there are fake rice distributors operating in the city. There are also practices of rice-mixing in Greater Jakarta," Sutanto told a news briefing with Dolog Jaya at Jakarta Police Headquarters.
The head of Dolog Jaya, Achmad Zawawi, said he had held a special meeting on Tuesday night with 48 rice distributors from the Cipinang distribution center in East Jakarta, the largest of such centers in Jakarta.
In the meeting, the agency reportedly reached an agreement with the distributors in which they set a price increase of Rp 350 per kilogram for Dolog Jaya rice. He said that of the increase, Rp 150 per kilogram would be taken by distributors, while Rp 200 would be enjoyed by retailers.
Dolog Jaya has also forbidden its distributors from mixing its rice with other foodstuffs which would lower the quality.
The agency has reportedly been supplying about 5,000 tons of rice a day through market operations -- more than twice the city's estimated daily consumer demand of 2,250 tons.
Soaring prices
The rice has a ceiling price of Rp 2,050 per kilogram. Market forces, however, have sent the prices soaring to as high as Rp 3,000 per kilogram. High quality rice has been reportedly selling for as much as Rp 5,000 per kilogram.
Meanwhile, about 100 housewives and youths staged a demonstration in front of City Hall on Wednesday, demanding a reduction in the sharply rising prices of foodstuffs.
The protesters, some of whom brought young children with them, said that people could no longer afford to buy basic necessities, including rice.
"Governor Sutiyoso has promised there would be no starvation in the city. But his word is nonsense because we are now witnessing an increasing number of people who are finding it difficult to buy rice," said one of the protesters who asked not to be named.
The group, who called themselves the "People's Proreform Movement", unfurled posters stating, among other things, "The people are hungry, the people are angry, the people (will) act", "Confiscate (former president) Soeharto's wealth for the people", and "Lower (staple food) prices".
Another protester, Dian, who brought her two-year-old daughter, said that her husband's income of about Rp 10,000 to Rp 15,000 a day was no longer enough to meet her family's basic needs.
"His income is used up after only buying rice. We can't spend the money for other needs, like electricity and water," said the 23-year-old housewife from Cijantung, East Jakarta. (ind/ivy/edt)