City official questions prize-parking system
City official questions prize-parking system
JAKARTA (JP): City Secretary Harun Al Rasyid expressed concern yesterday over the poor knowledge on the part of private companies interested in handling the city's parking business under the prize system.
"All the proposals they submitted to the city administration deal with prizes they offer to car owners. They focus only on the amount of revenues, which will be given to the city administration," he said.
He said the proposals failed to explain the other aspects of parking in the city, such as traffic and security. "Parking in the city is not only about revenues, it has social functions too," Harun said.
He explained that there should be clear concepts on parking management, including its function as part of traffic control, and the security aspect.
"The proposals the companies submitted have not yet been calculated carefully and there is a big question on how the system will enable both the city administration and the company to earn a profit," Harun said.
He said the city administration is still reviewing proposals from city-owned parking authority BP Parkir, private company PT Ikabina Karya Sukses and two other private firms, who are newcomers in the bidding, to manage the parking business with prizes. Harun refused to name the two other companies.
The city secretary questioned the prize system offered by the companies and its affect on the people because the implementation of the system could encourage the public to buy parking tickets just to win the prizes.
Private companies made bids to manage the city's parking facilities after BP Parkir failed to fulfill expectations amid allegations that part of the parking fees collected by the city- owned company had been misappropriated.
Out of the 19 private companies submitting proposals to manage the parking facilities, 18 withdrew their bids earlier this year.
PT Ikabina Karya Sukses is the only bidder of the initial 19 to propose the prize-parking system. The company claims that its proposed prize-parking system would contribute Rp 25.9 billion (US$11.77 million) to the city administration every year if approved.
The amount is greater than the revenues collected by BP Parkir, which is burdened with "leaks" in its financial management. The municipality set a Rp 14.6 billion revenue target from parking fees in the 1994/95 fiscal year, which ended on March 31. Over the first the nine months of the year, BP Parkir managed to collect only Rp 9 billion. (yns)