City ends parking operator's contract

City ends parking operator's contract

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Jakarta Administration terminated on Tuesday its contract
with the on and off street parking operator PT Adiwira Sembada
because the company failed to improve services or increase its
revenue share for the administration.

The termination was made official at a meeting at City Hall
which Governor Sutiyoso attended, along with members of an
independent research team from University of Indonesia (UI) and
officials from the City Parking Management Board (BP Parkir).

Ismeth S. Abidin, a member of the UI team, said that Sutiyoso
made his decision based largely on the rating that the UI
researchers gave the company -- a paltry 4.8 points -- after a
thorough assessment of the company's performance, which included
much time given for improvement that never came.

"The governor said that 4.8 points is a red flag. He was disappointed as the company had failed to improve its performance
over a six-month period. He then decided not to extend the
contract," he said.

Sutiyoso had earlier threatened to cancel the contract on Aug.
26 for the same reason.

The contract between the administration and PT Adiwira was
signed in 2001 and the implementation started on Feb. 1, 2002.
The off-street parking area they controlled is located in six
areas of the National Monument (Monas), Glodok and Pasar Baru in
Central Jakarta, Blok M and Mayestik in South Jakarta and Kelapa
Gading in North Jakarta.

The contract was extended to May 26, 2003, when they began a
special computerized parking system pilot project for on-street
parking in five locations using prepaid cards. The system had
been planned to be implemented at some 400 locations all over the
city.

The prepaid parking card was to be purchased by motorists and
provided by Bank Artha Graha, a bank controlled by businessman
Tomy Winata. Tomy is currently in a legal scrap with Tempo
magazine.

The five pilot project locations were on Jl. Agus Salim in
Central Jakarta, Jl. Raden Patah in South Jakarta, Jl. Jatinegara
Timur in East Jakarta, Jl. Bulevar Kelapa Gading in North Jakarta
and Jl. Gajah Mada in West Jakarta.

Ismeth said that PT Adiwira had failed to give a significant contribution to the city revenues. He did not elaborate but the
administration had hoped to receive about Rp 32 billion from
parking fees but that figure only reached Rp 14 billion.

He said earlier that the agency had allocated Rp 2.2 billion
for commission fees and its investment share in the project. The
company also asked for a further Rp 37 billion from the
administration to expand its prepaid card system.

Ismeth said that the company's poor service could be seen from
the independent team's survey results.

"Nearly all 300 respondents said in the questionnaire that
they were disappointed with the company's services," he said,
adding that parking attendant's were very slow and could not
learn how to operate the new system.

Most customers were also reluctant to buy the prepaid card as
it was a more expensive initial outlay.

Ismeth said Sutiyoso then asked the UI researchers to
calculate an appropriate compensation package for PT Adiwira as
the termination of the contract was an arbitrary decision made by
the administration.

BP Parkir chairman Yani Mulyadi said that the company's total
investment which had been agreed upon by the administration was
Rp 3.8 billion but it had proposed an additional investment of Rp
3.4 billion.

For the time being, the on-street parking system will return
to the old system of using tickets.