Complicated procedures face street vendors

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.