City to be pedicab-free again by end of July

JAKARTA (JP): Public order officers and members of the security forces will take to the streets next week to crack down on pedicabs to ensure the city is becak-free once again by the end of the month, officials said yesterday.

Deputy Governor for Administrative Affairs Abdul Kahfi has told the city's five mayors to cleanse the capital of the three- wheeled pedicabs from next Tuesday.

West Jakarta Mayor Sutardjianto and Central Jakarta Mayor Andi Subur Abdullah said they would inform pedicab drivers of the plan so they could leave voluntarily before the deadline.

"Actually we started transporting the pedicabs back to their places of origin last week and up to now 111 of the approximately 600 pedicabs (in this area) have left," Sutardjianto said.

He said the trucks which transported the pedicabs were escorted by security personnel in anticipation of incidents, such as the drivers resisting the "repatriation" program.

However, he refused to reveal the number of security personnel or trucks that his administration had made available.

Andi Subur also said that up to yesterday 150 pedicabs plying Central Jakarta streets had been transported back to their places of origin in West and Central Java.

The other three mayors were unavailable for comment.

On July 2 Governor Sutiyoso revoked his own decision to allow the pedicabs to operate again in the city seven days of permitting them on the grounds that the drivers had violated forbidden areas by operating not only in alleys and small streets but on major thoroughfares as well.

The city banned pedicabs in 1988 on the grounds that the slow man-powered vehicles worsened traffic congestion.

The head of the Indonesian Democratic Party faction in the City Council, Lukman Mokoginta, said the governor should discuss the plan with the pedicab drivers before deciding to crackdown on the vehicles' presence.

"Remember that it is Sutiyoso's fault that pedicabs were allowed to operate again in the city. So it is just appropriate to ask him to talk it over with the drivers," he said.

Abdul Rahim, a distraught pedicab driver in West Jakarta, said he was very upset with the administration's decision to cleanse the city of pedicabs.

"I just heard from my friends who joined the demonstration (on Tuesday) that we were allowed to operate in narrow alleys," the father of a teenage son said.

Asked whether he would follow the administration's instructions, Rahim said that it was up to his colleagues.

"I will follow what my colleagues and the officials have agreed. I just hope they give us a chance to make a living here. It's very difficult to earn money these days," he said.

The 48-year-old driver from Pemalang in Central Java started to operating here a week ago.

Rahim said he could earn Rp 7,000 (47 U.S. cents) a day after paying a deposit of Rp 3,000 to his boss. "It is better than working as a laborer in a roof-tile factory in my hometown where I earned only Rp 3,000 to 4,000 a day," he said.

On Tuesday, about 2,000 pedicab drivers demonstrated at City Hall demanding that they be allowed to operate in the city's alleys and narrow streets.

The administration, however, told the drivers' representatives that the city insisted on sticking to the existing 10-year-old ordinance which states that Jakarta is a pedicab-free area and prohibits any pedicabs from operating at anytime, anywhere in the capital.

After the meeting, one of the representatives who claimed to be drivers' coordinator, Slamet Edi Prayitno, told demonstrators that the administration had promised "not to take stern action" against them.

Neither Sutiyoso nor Kahfi could be reached for comment on Slamet's claim. (ind)