City told to send parking fee hike plan to council

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) faction at the City Council demanded the administration immediately forward its proposal to hike parking fees to the council, to prevent prolonged and unnecessary public debate.

PDI Spokesman Lukman F. Mokoginta said yesterday the faction thought the polemic in the media (about parking fees) should not go on endlessly. "The executive should therefore immediately forward the draft rule to the council for discussion," Lukman said.

The faction called for the move at a council executives' meeting which approved the city budget for 1997/1998. The budget was Rp 3.23 trillion, an increase of 5.18 percent over the last fiscal year.

The uproar over the planned new parking fees followed a leak of the draft plan to the press. The draft is still under discussion by officials from the parking agency, the land transport and traffic control agency and other agencies.

Officials earlier said the main aim of the plan was to reduce traffic jams caused by cars parked on streets.

Lukman said in a council meeting with executives yesterday the reported plan to raise parking fees from Rp 300 to up to Rp 5,000 for the first hour was "exaggerated".

"The faction considers it wrong to increase city revenue by hiking parking fees 1,666 percent over the old Rp 300 fee.

The PDI faction further said improving parking management would be a better solution. Lukman said fees in practice reached Rp 1,000 for the first hour, but only Rp 300 was paid to the city in line with the 1979 parking fee rule.

Meanwhile the head of the Commission D for development affairs, Bandjar Marpaung, said separately yesterday the plan to hike fares should be supported, regardless of the proposed amount, because motorists here had yet to show responsibility for using and parking cars.

Bandjar further commented on a comment by Minister of Finance Mar'ie Muhammad, who said Wednesday that parking management should not be in the hands of the private sector.

"In Jakarta we still need private parking management..." Bandjar said, because private parking managements, in search of profits, were well organized compared to the city's agency.

In a discussion on a new draft law on taxes and fees at the House of Representatives, Mar'ie had said one reason regional governments lost revenue from parking was that the private sector was involved.

Bandjar further said the city needed the private sector to build parking lots, preferably multi-story ones, to reduce on- street parking.

But he said the Governor had still not accepted any of the private proposals to manage the city's parking management, because they have all involved offering prizes to parking ticket buyers.

"The proposals so far do not show how the parking problems could be solved, and they involve gambling," he said.

Property tax

Property tax was also discussed at the meeting.

City revenue from the government, collected from taxes and fees, was estimated at Rp 468.39 billion, with 93.85 percent from property taxes.

The PDI faction said the increase was because of rising land values and building components.

"Actually this is a burden for people," Lukman said, as poor people with land in high-priced places would not be able to afford the taxes.

"However...we ask that the land values (assessed by the revenue agency) should not only be used to calculate land and property tax. They should also be used to calculate land compensation and the value of city assets which are to be exchanged with third parties in barter agreements."

Each year the council receives complaints about land compensation for appropriated land said to have been taken for public projects.

The faction also demanded a thorough evaluation of fees, and requested that fees burdening small income earners like cart- pullers, should be annulled.

"This would increase a sense of justice and reduce the high cost economy here." Lukman said. (anr)