City gets no benefit from islands

City gets no benefit from islands

JAKARTA: At least 34 islands of the Kepulauan Seribu (Thousand
Islands) group located off the north coast of Jakarta are still
private property, as the owners, who have been licensed to manage
them, have not opened them to the public.

Head of the Kepulauan Seribu Regency Planning Board Mara Oloan
Siregar said during a discussion here that the city
administration had allowed the private sector to manage 45 out of
110 islands in the Thousands Islands for tourism, but only 11 of
them were open to the public, Antara reported.

The management of the private islands had violated Bylaw No.
11/1992 on land use in the island group, which stipulated that
private sector management should provide 40 percent of the land
for public facilities, said Siregar.

She said that the city administration had enjoyed benefits
from taxes levied on hotels and restaurants on the 11 public
islands, while the other islands had not benefited either the
people or the administration.

Owners of the private islands include relatives of former
president Soeharto and conglomerators like Pontjo Sutowo.

Rini Raksadjaya of the Research Center for Tourism at the
Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) said the administration
should review the licenses for owners of the other 36 islands and
impose huge taxes on them.--JP