Bogor wants to eschew dirty city label
Theresia Sufa, The Jakarta Post, Bogor
Threatened with the title of dirtiest city in next year's Adipura city cleanliness awards, the Bogor municipality says it will mobilize 1,100 sanitation officers to clean up various spots in the city.
"The final judging will be done prior to the awards ceremony on Environment Day on June 5, 2006, so we still have time to clean up," Bogor Information, Culture, and Tourism Agency head Yamin M. Saleh said on Tuesday.
He said that as of January, the officers together with the military would clean up 23 spots around the city every Monday to Tuesday and Thursday to Friday.
There will be a progress evaluation meeting every Wednesday, Yamin added.
"We hope that the community will also participate in the cleanliness drive every Saturday and Sunday, coordinated directly by their district and community leaders," he said.
The Office of the State Minister for the Environment issued on Dec. 15 an initial evaluation naming Bogor as one of the dirtiest cities in Indonesia. Other cities mentioned were Depok, Tangerang, Bandarlampung in Lampung province, Palembang in South Sumatra and Batam in Riau.
Yamin admitted that several locations in Bogor such as traditional markets, bus terminals and residential areas were in dire need of attention. These include Bogor Market, Padasuka Market, Baranangsiang bus terminal and Merdeka sub-terminal.
"When the central judging team saw these spots they decided to give Bogor a lower score, such as in traditional markets where there are no garbage dumps," he said, explaining that cities were judged according to their park spatial plan, bus terminals, shopping district, market and garbage dumps.
Separately, Bogor city council member Dadang Ruchiyana blamed Bogor municipality's lack of seriousness in managing the city's sanitation.
He said that the council itself had allocated Rp 20 billion (about US$2 million) in the 2005 city budget for sanitation, both for the Bogor Environment and Sanitary Agency as well as for the sanitation forces.
"We really have to evaluate the city environment and sanitary agency, if after three months there are no improvements, then perhaps the municipality needs to question the current head of the agency," Dadang said.
He also said that despite various bylaws on sidewalk vendors, and traffic, there had been no serious action to enforce them.
"But I don't want to entirely blame the municipality, in this case everyone including the council and the community is to blame. Especially considering how low people's awareness of the basic principles of sanitation is," Dadang said.