City urged to form body to supervise street vendors

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)