Care Forum unsure of its responsibilities

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

It has been over a month since the city administration established the Jakarta Care Forum to help solve some of the city's problems, but its members admit that they have made no progress and are still unsure about what they are supposed to be doing.

Saparinah Sadli, a social psychologist and one of the forum members, said the city administration had provided very little information about the forum's authority or how their suggestions would be used by the city administration.

"As long as these issues are not resolved, I doubt the forum will be of any use," she told The Jakarta Post, last weekend.

She also said since the establishment of the forum, its members had not held a meeting to discuss the city's problems.

Consisting of experts from a variety of disciplines, the Jakarta Care Forum was set up by the city administration early last month to help the administration get a handle on some of the urban problems here.

The administration has long been criticized for the way it deals with problems, such as forcibly evicting the poor from their homes and businesses along riverbanks.

Besides Saparinah, some of the experts included in the forum are Ali Wongso (former city councillor), Arief Rahman (educator), Hermawan Kartajaya (marketing expert) and M. Ronny Nitibaskara (criminologist).

Saparinah went even further by saying that she did not regard herself as being part of the forum.

"As far as I know, Governor Sutiyoso just announced the formation of the forum after a meeting in which experts were asked to give opinions about a number of problems in the city," she said.

She said a number of concerned experts had sent a letter to the city administration offering suggestions on what form the forum should take.

"But there has been no answer so far," she said.

Contacted separately, another member of the forum, Arief, said the forum had a long way to go before it could operate effectively.

"Because of problems in the city administration, suggestions from experts in the forum would be changed for the worse before they could be implemented.

"And there is no information about who will put the experts' suggestions into action or where the money will come from to implement (the suggestions)," Arief told the Post.

Arief said the city administration needed to overhaul the bureaucracy before it could begin a reform based on suggestions from the forum members.

He added that the forum members had not yet been provided an office at City Hall from which they could work.

"Until now, members of the forum work individually. But in the near future we will sit down together and discuss the city's problems," he said, adding that the meeting would take place in the next one or two weeks.

He underlined that members of the forum were not personal advisers to Governor Sutiyoso. "This is only an attempt to involve citizens in deciding what is best for the city."