Cooperation needed to help street vendors

Cooperation needed to help street vendors

JAKARTA (JP): PD Pasar Jaya, the city market management,
should cooperate with city-owned Bank DKI to provide loans for
vendors in Klender, East Jakarta, to help them buy kiosks from
the firm, a city councilor said.

Abdulgani H. Abdullah, the chairman of the City Council's
commission B in charge of economic affairs, said on Thursday that
the loans could stop the illegal sale of land appropriation
permits.

He added that the city administration runs a program to enable
street vendors to buy kiosks or hire space in buildings to sell
their merchandise.

Abdulgani was responding to reports concerning the fate of
vendors who once occupied kiosks in the marketplace inside the
state housing complex, Perumnas, in Klender.

Fire

A fire gutted the market on Dec.5, 1993, leaving 1,457 vendors
on the street. They were then accommodated at a nearby football
field, while PD Pasar Jaya rebuilt the market.

The makeshift kiosks on the football field were destroyed by a
fire last February, just as PD Pasar Jaya finished building 1,600
kiosks.

PD Pasar Jaya then offered kiosks to some vendors, who had to
buy land appropriation documents first.

They were forced to pay 25 percent of the price of a kiosk in
advance, ranging from Rp 1.4 million to Rp 3.6 million per square
meter.

But most vendors sold their documents to other people.

Abdulgani said the illegal trading of the documents would
worsen the situation. Therefore, he urged PD Pasar Jaya to
provide loans for the vendors.(32)