Complicated procedures face street vendors
By Annastashya Emmanuelle
JAKARTA (JP): Complicated bureaucratic procedures await street vendors who wish to claim their belongings after being confiscated by the city public order officials during crackdowns across the city.
The procedures are time consuming and cost them relatively a lot of money before they manage to get back their belongings.
They have to go back and forth to several different offices, including the subdistrict administration office, mayoralty office, the city administration and the district court to prepare all the necessary documents to claim their belongings at the city's warehouse in Cakung, East Jakarta.
Quite often, visits to these offices must be made several times as the officials claimed to be too "busy" to issue the necessary documents.
Udur Hutabarat, one of the vendors, told her experience to The Jakarta Post last week. She ran a sidewalk tire repair shop in Cengkareng of West Jakarta. But recently, the city administration's public order officials raided all the street businesses there, and confiscated her compressor.
She said that she had come to the Cakung warehouse for the second time, but was still unable to collect her compressor.
Having with her all the necessary documents, including a letter from the West Jakarta District Court showing that she had paid the Rp 15,600 (US$ 1.30) fine for violating the city bylaw No. 11 on public order, she returned to the warehouse last week hoping to be able to collect her compressor.
Instead, she was told to return to the city administration office to register her letter from the court.
"I have rented a public minivan today because I thought I would be able to take back my compressor. But I couldn't. I don't know why. In fact, I have followed all the procedures," Udur said exasperatedly.
"For the transportation alone, including renting the minivan, I had to spend almost Rp 300,000 (US$35.30) as I had to go to various offices several times," she said, adding that she often had to wait for a long time at the offices just to be told to return the next day because her papers were not done yet.
"When I complained, they told me that I'm not the only person with documents to be processed," she remarked.
Udur has visited the city administration four times and she would come again to the warehouse for the third time.
"I live in Cengkareng, West Jakarta, while this (warehouse) is in East Jakarta. It's very tiring to shuttle back and forth like this," she said.
But according to the public order office at the city administration, the claiming procedures are quite straightforward.
Jalil, a staff member of the office, said vendors usually went to Cakung to make sure that their belongings were there, and then went to court to pay the fine.
Later on they came to the city administration office to get a clearance letter and then they could claim their belongings at the warehouse.
"We don't charge them anything. They only need to pay the fine to the court," he told the Post
The Cakung warehouse is used by the city administration to keep all the street vendor's belongings such as carts and merchandise, which are confiscated during raids across the city. It is also used to keep the three-wheeled pedicab, locally known as becak, confiscated during raids.
The duty officer at the warehouse told the Post that all of the vendors' belongings were properly secured until the owner came to claim them.
Pedicabs, however, will be destroyed and would be later sunk at sea, he said.
"But not many of the street vendors come to get their belongings," he said.
Broken
Hendar, a vendor who sells cigarettes and soft drinks on the sidewalk outside the Landmark building in South Jakarta, recounted his experience when his business was raided in 1998.
"They took my cart and merchandise. Before going to court to pay the fine, I went to Cakung to check my belongings," he said. "But to my surprise, they were all broken and some of them were missing."
Despite the frequent crackdowns, street vendors are persistent in continuing their businesses, even though the raids could turn violent and result in them losing their merchandise.
Suyadi, a vendor on the sidewalk in front of Atmajaya University in South Jakarta, for example, not only lost his merchandise during the recent crackdown, he also lost his two front teeth.
"When the officers hit my cart as they drove by, my cigarettes were falling, so I bent down to pick them up. All of a sudden one of the officers kicked me in the mouth and I lost two of my teeth," he said, looking very sad.
But after the crackdown, the vendors returned to the same spot as they consider moving to other places would not make any difference.
"I'll just stay here. If there is crackdown, I'll disappear for a while and then return again, as I have to earn a living for my family," Dodi, another street vendor, said.