City Hall vows to establish order before APEC meeting

JAKARTA (JP): The city administration pledged to intensify its daily campaign to establish and maintain public order in preparation for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Bogor, 60 kilometers south of Jakarta, in November.

"Intensifying our routine activities means that we will expand our operation throughout all the city's areas and execute patrolling and sweeping campaigns more often," Toha Reno, the subdivisional head of the city's public order bureau, told The Jakarta Post yesterday.

This will call for more personnel and more vehicles which, in turn, also require more money, Toha said.

As for increasing the number of personnel, Harry Soetjipto, the subdivisional head in charge of personnel affairs, told the Post that his bureau will engage 25 new municipal guards (polisi pamong praja) in addition to the present 643.

Harry said his subdivision has selected 200 candidates to be installed as municipal guards after being trained for one month.

Municipal guards are required to arrest beggars, pedicab drivers, street prostitutes, street vendors and "three-in-one" youths (those who are paid to be the third person in cars on the car pool streets) and give them guidance. Their tasks also include demolishing illegally built makeshift shanties and confiscating beverages with high alcoholic content.

According to Toha, last month the bureau arrested 262 beggars, 13 street hawkers, 284 three-in-one children, 93 street prostitutes, 324 street stall vendors trading outside the street vendor zones and 137 pedicab drivers.

The bureau also confiscated 98,150 bottles of alcoholic drinks and demolished 1,377 makeshift huts during the period, Toha added.

Toha said the people arrested, the majority of which are migrants, are sent back to their hometowns after being arrested and instructed to abandon their present trades and to start a new life.

However, they usually come back to Jakarta again and return to their old life, Toha said.

As a result, the bureau is never able to thoroughly deal with this rural-to-urban migration problem, Toha said, adding that the bureau's budget, personnel and other resources to cope with this problem are limited.

Special police

Apart from the municipal guards, the bureau also has 1,318 special police (polisi khusus) and 480 civilian law enforcers, Harry added.

When asked about the increase in the number of vehicles, Harry said that as of February, the bureau had purchased 85 vans for municipal guards and 265 motorcycles for each subdistrict in Jakarta.

Apart from the 265 newly distributed motorcycles, the bureau will distribute 230 other new motorcycles to subdistrict military law enforcers next month, ten motorcycles to members of the city task force for traffic order and two minibuses to members of the city traffic wardens.

Harry said the bureau also plans to add 95 motorcycles for municipal guards and to establish a special team to deal with student brawls.

When asked about how much money the bureau will need for those increases, Toha said the budget at present is enough to finance the addition.

Previously, the police and the military had also pledged to clear criminals from the Jakarta greater area. (06)