Council demands action against Secure Parking
Council demands action against Secure Parking
Zakki Hakim, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Councillors demanded on Friday that Governor Sutiyoso immediately
take firm action against Secure Parking, the city's largest off-
street parking operator, for refusing to cancel its arbitrary
rate increase.
They said the governor should issue a warning to force the
company to reinstate the old parking rates, otherwise it should
be closed down.
Koeswadi Soesilohardjo, spokesman for the council's Commission
D on development affairs, said that if the parking operator
continued with the new fees, his commission would recommend
sanctions against it.
A formal recommendation is to be made for Sutiyoso to produce
the first warning letter demanding that Secure Parking cancel the
increase within seven days.
If the operator was still unresponsive, a second letter should
be issued giving three days more to comply with the demand,
Koeswadi said.
If the company still remained defiant, the governor should
issue a final warning with a one-day deadline before the
administration shut it down, he added, arguing that these
procedures were in accordance with Gubernatorial Decree No.
1698/1999.
Secure Parking general manager Tony Tjuatja promised at a
recent hearing with the City Council that his company would
cancel the parking rate hike on Tuesday. But he did not keep the
promise.
The council had demanded parking operators of private
buildings across Jakarta to revoke their decision to raise
parking rates by up to 100 percent.
Tony argued that the new prices were set by the owners of
buildings in order to cover maintenance costs for the lots.
Company spokesperson Jani Ana Septa Hardiwinangoen echoed
Tony's statement, saying, "The rate increase is the decision of
the association. We are just the operator. We raised the rates
unilaterally because it is what the owners of the buildings
wanted."
She said the 100 percent increase in the rates followed the
market mechanism and the increased tax for parking operators.
The increase was made effective on June 9, but without any
official approval from either the city administration or the
legislature, which prompted the council to declare it illegal.
The council has also threatened to push for a lawsuit against
Secure Parking.
The arbitrary increase has violated Gubernatorial Decree No.
1698/1999, which sets parking rates across the capital at Rp
1,000 per hour for cars and Rp 500 for motorcycles.
It has also breached a number of other regulations, including
Bylaw No. 5/1999 and Bylaw No. 20/1997, which state that any
increase in parking rates must be approved by both the City
Council and the governor.
However, Governor Sutiyoso said he did not have the power to
force the private parking operators to cancel the rate increase,
arguing that the rates were determined by market mechanisms.