City to launch pre-festive season order crackdown
JAKARTA (JP): The city administration will launch a crackdown on security and order in the city ahead of the Christmas and Idul Fitri celebrations, an official said yesterday.
Toha Reno, head of the city's public order subdivision, told The Jakarta Post that the operation would have 11 initiatives aimed at preventing upheavals in the city over the next five months.
"The eleven steps include: maintaining security patrols; supporting the neighborhood security program, especially at night; controlling and supervising the prices of the nine staple foods; and controlling the distribution of meat to counter illegal sales during the peak seasons," Toha said.
The other steps are to maintain strict control and supervision of entertainment spots, to crack down on social outcasts who tend to disturb public order and security, to prevent possible fires in the city, to abolish sidewalk vendors who disturb traffic flow, to ensure the food sellers operate in an orderly fashion during the fasting month, and to maintain the city's cleaning programs.
"These steps will be conducted in continuous operations. The market operation, for example, is intended mainly to prevent the traders from arbitrarily increasing the prices of staple foods," Toha said.
"The operation will also deal with the rising number of vagrants and beggars who entered the city from villages during the current dry season. They came in throngs because the drought makes their paddy fields and gardens dry, forcing them to lose their regular income."
Toha said that special teams have been set up to run the operations, which will be conducted jointly with related parties and institutions, such as Jakarta Military Command, Jakarta Police, City Land Transportation Agency and Jakarta Regional Economic Bureau.
"We really want to anticipate all the possibilities that can cause an upheaval in society. That is why many posts have been put on alert to monitor the situation," he said.
The city's assistant of economic and development affairs, Prawoto Danumihardjo, expressed confidence that the prices of rice, beef, buffalo meat, palm oil and red chili will increase by no more than 10 percent in the lead up to the Christmas, New Year and Idul Fitri holidays.
Prawoto said the price increase reflected the rising demand during the holidays.
"I hope people will not worry too much because we will try to ensure the prices do not jump by more than 10 percent," he said.
Prawoto said his office would also ensure that the city was supplied with enough food.
Reports from the Jakarta Regional Economic Bureau show that in general the prices of staple foods, as of the third week of this month, were relatively stable except for: palm oil which increased by 24.44 percent; red chili by 10.59 percent; and rice by 7.47 percent.
Rice supplies were estimated to be enough for 20 months, the reports said.
The demand for rice in the city reached 2.250 tons per day, according to the reports. The demand for sugar reached 23,000 tons per month and wheat 32,000 tons per month.
The reports said demand for palm oil was 500 tons daily, while beef and buffalo meat demand reached 180 tons per day.
Local demand for chicken was 410 tons daily and chicken eggs 425 tons, according to the reports.
The bureau also predicted that in the lead up to Christmas, the demand for vegetables, red chili, red onion and fruit would increase by 10 percent.
The demand for vegetables will increase to 1,500 tons daily compared to the usual 1,300 tons, red chili to 45.65 tons daily from 41.5 tons, red onion to 62.59 tons daily from 56.9 tons. The demand for fruit will also increase to 440 tons daily from 400 tons. (05/07)