City official defends parking joint venture

JAKARTA (JP): A top city official has came to the defense of a controversial joint car parking venture between a local company and an Australian firm.

"Such a joint venture is just alright because there is no law explicitly banning a foreign company from such a business," the assistant to the City Secretary of Economic and Development Affairs, Prawoto, said Wednesday.

"But both firms are obliged to hand over 25 percent of their gross income collected from parking lots to BP Parkir, the city parking authority."

He was responding to sharp criticism of the city administration for allowing Australia's Secure Parking to manage parking services around luxury city buildings in cooperation with PT Securindo Packatama.

The Indonesian Consumers Foundation (YLKI) blasted the policy saying local companies could manage the city's parking services just as well.

"It's difficult to understand why the city administration and owners of luxury buildings appeared to trust a foreign firm more than a local one in matters regarding parking management," YLKI executive chairwoman Tini Hadad said.

She said this served only to further breed the false notion in certain quarters that "everything from overseas, especially from developed countries, is better."

"Such a wrong attitude could eventually impair our campaigns to encourage people to use and love domestic products," Tini said.

A city councilor supported the YLKI's stand.

"The parking joint venture runs counter to the spirit contained in the city ruling No. 7/87, as well as the governor's decree No 1538/92 that, among other things, regulate procedures regarding the employment of foreigners," said Djenny Suharso from the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) faction.

He said the city's parking management procedures should be based on these rulings.

But Prawoto said the city administration gave the go-ahead to the Australian company because Indonesia still lagged behind advanced countries in the legal aspects of certain public services.

"We should not turn a blind eye to this," he said.

He hoped the company could work more professionally in managing parking services, especially since it was using a high- tech system that could ensure more accurate data on the number of cars parked. "And in turn this could generate more revenue from the parking sector."

TB M. Rais, the deputy governor for economic and development affairs, was quoted by the Jayakarta daily as saying the joint venture could improve the city's parking management and increase city revenue.

Parwoto said the city's parking revenues had been decreasing over the past three years, mostly because many corrupt parking attendants repeatedly gave the same tickets to motorists at the expense of BP Parkir.

"Such practice should be stopped once and for all. Other city revenue office will never be able to reach the revenue target from the public sector," he said. (bas)