City council urges mayors to relocate street vendors
City council urges mayors to relocate street vendors
JAKARTA (JP): The City Council urged the five city mayors to implement an integrated program to relocate street vendors to markets in their areas.
Deputy Chairman of the City Council's Commission B, in charge of economic affairs, Nitra Arsyad told reporters that the implementation of such a program would be possible, as shown by the success of vendors moved to the Pasar Minggu and Kebayoran Baru markets in South Jakarta.
"The program, implemented in both markets, shows that it is not impossible to relocate street vendors and make the street clean of them," Nitra said after a meeting with the South Jakarta Mayor.
South Jakarta mayoralty has implemented a program to relocate street vendors to district markets and has so far undertaken the program in Pasar Minggu, Kebayoran Lama, Pondok Labu and Blok A.
The commission criticized the tendency, among officials of the mayoralties and the city-owned market company PD Pasar Jaya, to lay the responsibility of street vendors at each others' feet.
Nitra said it is usual for PD Pasar Jaya to blame the district office, or visa versa, for allowing the street vendors to open their businesses on the streets.
"It is time to stop, why don't they cooperate in solving the problem?" he asked, citing the success of the South Jakarta mayoralty in implementing the program.
He said the most important thing in solving the problem is by working together. "As the first step, this can be done by counting the number of street vendors operating in one market and how many kiosks are available there."
"If the number of street vendors exceeds the number of kiosk available then the rest will have to be relocated to other markets in the area," Nitra said.
He disclosed that one obstacle in carrying out the program is to getting the traders to understand the importance of the program, adding that city authorities should also listen to the vendors' demands and complaints.
"In Pasar Minggu, the street vendors demanded that there be no traders on the streets when they agreed to move to the market. The mayoralty can accommodate that demand," Nitra said.
He said the city administration should also play a greater role in encouraging mayoralties to implement the program so that situations, such as the one seen in Tanah Abang market where street vendors dominate half of the street, can be overcome.
According to data provided by the city administration, there are about 205,000 street vendors in the city, while all markets in the city can only accommodate 104,000 vendors.(yns)