Agency enlists help to collect trash fees

Agency enlists help to collect trash fees

JAKARTA (JP): The City Sanitation Agency is enlisting the help
of various bodies to enforce the collection of sanitation fees to
keep the city clean.

M. Subasir, head of the agency, said his office will cooperate
with offices of the state-owned electricity company PLN, the
city-owned water supply company, and subdistrict offices, to
collect the fees.

"The fees are needed to improve the agency's services,"
Subasir said.

He said the sanitation fees, according to the city regulation
no 5/1988, have two grades, one for residential homes and the
other for stores.

Residents have to pay sanitation fees between Rp 250 to Rp
10.000 while store owners have to pay between Rp 4,500 to Rp
27,000, he said.

To improve services, he said the agency will deploy 32 new
garbage trucks in the five mayoralties. These include six trucks
for Central Jakarta, seven for North Jakarta, seven for West
Jakarta, six for South Jakarta and six for East Jakarta.

There are currently 900 garbage trucks in the city. Seven
hundred and fifteen belong to the agency, while the remaining 185
are rented from private companies.

Subasir said the agency ideally needs 1,607 trucks to load the
more than 25,000 cubic meters of garbage accumulated by the city
every day.

He said earlier that his agency has suggested the city
administration rents more trucks from private companies.

"I hope it will be approved by the administration," he said.

He said renting garbage trucks would be cheaper than buying
new trucks since the agency would not be able to pay the
maintenance costs.

The municipality has allocated Rp 31.02 billion to the agency
in the 1996/1997 fiscal year, an increase from Rp 30.20 billion
in this year's budget.

It has also set a target of Rp 12.5 million for the agency's
revenue from sanitary fees in the next budget year, an increase
from Rp 10.2 billion. (jun)