Billboard permit rules: Easy money for officials
Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The complicated process for obtaining permits for advertising billboards or outdoor advertisement has been used by certain officials of the city administration as a source of illegal levies from the applicants, businessmen said.
The Indonesian Outdoor Media Association (AMLI) said that to obtain one permit for one advertising billboard, an outdoor media company has to wait around five months as its application has to go through many agencies of the administration.
AMLI deputy chairman Gunadi Soekemi told a press conference on Tuesday that the long process in obtaining the permits had discouraged many companies to advertise their products through billboards. He said that many companies instead used other kinds of advertisement.
According to Gunadi, the 14 regulations on billboards have many loopholes.
"The ambiguous regulations for billboards are often used by the corrupt officials for obtaining their personnel benefits," he said.
Muljadi Suriawan, another AMLI executive, concurred with Gunawan, saying that the city administration, for example, only stated to charge an applicant some Rp 215 million for a billboard that should be worth some Rp 1.2 billion. In fact, the applicants paid more than that amount, but then was corrupted by the officials.
"How it could happen, you can answer by yourself," said Muljadi, citing the example of a billboard of a cigarette product near the Hilton Hotel on Jl. Gatot Subroto, Central Jakarta.
Muljadi also criticized the city governor decree no 46/2001 which gave guidelines where the billboards should be placed. He said that in the decree, there are many places which could not be used for installing the billboards.
"But, such prohibitions become meaningless, as an article of the decree said that the locations could be a place for billboards if it is permitted by the governor," he said.
According to AMLI's chairman Aip Syarifudin, the inconsistent regulations have also caused chaotic conditions of billboards in the city.
"We can see the condition along the streets that shows no order on the placement of billboards," said Aip.
Meanwhile, head of the city revenue agency Dadan Supriyadi denied that the process of issuing a permit for billboards takes five months. He said that the normal process in all agencies in the city administration is only around 31 days.
"I do not understand if they say the processing of a permit takes five months," said Dadan, adding it could take so long if their applications were incomplete.
Dadan also denied about the rampant corruption. "I cannot comment on such an allegation if there is no evidence, as it will only waste my time," according to Dadan.
Long process in obtaining permits for billboards:
1. Submitting application to city revenue agency. (one day)
2. City revenue agency issues notes for creation of the billboard's block plan to the city planning agency. (seven days)
3. The block plan is processed by city planning agency while the city revenue agency asks the billboard picture from the applicant. (30 days)
4. City revenue agency issues notes on the billboard rates to the mayoralty's construction supervision agency. The latest agency issues its calculation of tax and levies. (30-50 days)
5. The city revenue agency takes files on the billboard from the mayoralty's construction supervisory agency. (seven days)
6. Further process in the revenue agency. (58 days)