Billboard permit rules: Easy money for officials

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)