City promises to reevaluate new AC bus fare

JAKARTA (JP): The city administration promises to reevaluate implementation of the new air-conditioned express bus fare in order to avoid creating unrest, Governor Surjadi Soedirdja says.

Surjadi said yesterday that he had ordered the deputy for economic and development affairs to reevaluate the process -- conducted by the Organization of Land Transport Owners (Organda) -- of the new fare's implementation, which began Saturday.

"We are going to explain to the public the whole fare increase process in order to avoid any misunderstandings among the public," Surjadi said.

He said that the organization should have discussed the new rate's application date with the city administration, although this was not required by any regulations.

Organda introduced the new fare -- Rp 1,800 (78 U.S. cents) -- for AC buses on Saturday without any official announcement. The only 'announcement' was the new fare stickers the organization placed on buses' windshields.

The organization said the Rp 500 increase was legal, as the city administration had approved its proposal.

The new fare apparently surprised passengers, who complained that it was too high.

A councilor also criticized the policy, saying it was improper that the city administration did not inform the city council about the approval. This makes the approval unofficial, he said.

Tb. M. Rais, deputy governor for economic and development affairs, said that he was also surprised that the organization had already imposed the new fare without prior announcement.

"Publicizing the increase is the most important issue in this case, and it takes time to properly explain the policy to the people. Publicizing cannot be done through stickers," Rais said.

Meanwhile, the governor also said that the city administration had never planned to eliminate bemo, three-wheeled motorized public transportation, from the city's streets.

"Our policy is not to eliminate bemo, but we plan to replace the vehicles gradually by waiting for bemo to phase out naturally," he said.

"Therefore it is illogical for the city administration to pay any compensation to bemo owners," he said.

The process will take time, because Indonesians are very clever in modifying and fixing aging vehicles like bemo, he said.

When asked about his decree on a type of vehicle to replace bemo, the governor said that it's still a proposal and the city administration has not yet decided on anything.

On Monday, about 50 bemo drivers came, for the second time, to the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute yesterday to seek legal assistance to counter the administration's policy to eliminate bemo .

The owners wanted the down payments for the new vehicles to be eliminated. They also wanted as low as possible monthly installments for the new vehicles, and asked that the new vehicles be priced according to rates for commercial purposes, which are lower than for private use. (yns)