Corruption in garbage management suspected

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The closure of the Bantar Gebang dump site in Bekasi, West Java, a recent headache for city administration officials, has further exposed allegations of corruption at the Jakarta sanitary agency.

Agency bureaucrats, from its lowest-ranking officers to top officials, have drawn fire for manipulating the city's budget for handling garbage, according to Ali Imron Hussein, deputy chief of the City Council's Commission D for development affairs.

"Corruption in the agency is terrible, as it was done not only by top officials, but also by low-ranking officers," said the city councillor.

Higher-ups manipulated the agency's budget for waste management to their benefit, while lower ranking officers, including drivers, he noted, took advantage of the situation by taking the garbage to buyers and selling selected items -- instead of its proper destination, the dump in Bantar Gebang.

He referred to the graft as a "time consuming" process that has resulted in a reduction in the amount of city garbage transported to dump sites "per day."

Ali said that, every year, the agency officials order the purchase of several trucks under the pretext of increasing their capacity for transporting the garbage, saying their workers can only haul 80 percent of the 25,000 cubic meters of trash that Jakarta produces on a daily basis.

"We (the councillors) have asked them for a report of their annual expenses but, up until now, we have not received it," he told reporters.

Every year, the agency has received about Rp 90 billion from the city budget to manage its garbage. This year, it plans to allocate Rp 50 billion to set up a sanitary landfill system at Bantar Gebang site.

"But they haven't realized it yet -- where did the money go as they failed to manage the garbage?" he asked.

"The city inspectorate should interrogate them," Ali added.

The excess garbage, he said, has become a veritable gold mine for the sanitary agency officers.

The city administration came under attack earlier this month when Bekasi mayoralty decided to shut down the 104-hectare Bantar Gebang dump site.

That decision, however, shocked the administration, which insisted that Bekasi mayoralty could not close the site until 2003, as stipulated under a signed agreement.

As a result of the incident, a panicked Governor Sutiyoso immediately fired the city sanitation agency's head Saksono Soehodo and his deputy.

Earlier this week, following intervention by the central government, the Bekasi mayoralty agreed to reopen Bantar Gebang dump site for a one-month grace period.

The mayoralty demanded that Jakarta city officials improve conditions at the site, including on its sanitary landfill system and the construction of medical care facilities for residents.

If the administration failed to accommodate the demand, the Bekasi mayoralty will close the site again on Feb. 1 next year.

Apparently, garbage problems will continue to haunt the administration. Apart from obligation to examine alleged corruption at the sanitary agency, the administration has yet to make a serious plan to solve it.

The spokesman of the administration, Muhayat, admitted that the city budget could ill afford to accede to the Bekasi mayoralty's demand.

"We will probably use a reserve fund to cope with the problem," he said, without elaboration.