City urged to form body to supervise street vendors

JAKARTA (JP): The city council yesterday urged the city administration to form a new independent agency to handle street vendors.

Head of the Council's Commission B for economic affairs, Abdulgani B. Abdullah, said that the city administration needs an independent agency to handle this sector because it is not clear what agency or office is in charge of handling street vendors.

"It is time to form a new agency which is responsible for the sector," Abdullah told reporters after a hearing with the city administration yesterday.

Street vendors are now overseen by the city public order office, the small-scale business task force, the city economic office and the city revenue office. The offices have their own interest in handling the vendors. The city public order office is in charge of evicting vendors from prohibited areas, while the revenue office collects daily fees from the vendors.

Latest records show there are 130,000 street vendors throughout the city, 100,000 of which conduct business in prohibited places. The vendors contribute at least Rp 1.5 billion annually to the revenue office.

Coordinator of the Informal Sector Development Project Nyoman Djendria said in the meeting yesterday that the city administration plans to build nine new markets to accommodate vendors who conduct business at illegal places.

"Two of the planned nine markets are now being constructed in Central and North Jakarta," Nyoman said.

The Galur market in Central Jakarta is designed to accommodate 250 street vendors and the Permai market in North Jakarta will hold 470 others.

The administration has allocated Rp 1.38 billion for the construction works and Rp 2 billion for land appropriation.

The North Jakarta project will be completed in December this year and the Central Jakarta project will be finished next January, Nyoman said.

The other seven markets will be in Palmerah, Cengkareng, Serpong in West Jakarta, Tanah Abang in Central Jakarta, Kebayoran Lama in South Jakarta, and Pulogadung and Jatinegara in East Jakarta.

The city still needs several markets with a total space of at least 35 hectares to accommodate street vendors. The existing markets in the city have a total space of 205 hectares. (yns)