Council members advised to be more outspoken

JAKARTA (JP): City Council Speaker MH Ritonga urged councillors on Thursday to improve the City Council's performance in handling a wide variety of problems in the city.

Ritonga asked the councillors to be more outspoken, as long as what they say is supported by data and objective facts.

"Being outspoken means being able to communicate clear ideas with the aim of solving various problems, dealing with any deviations in governmental affairs, development projects and the community," Ritonga said at a year's end press conference about the council's achievements this year.

The council speaker made the remarks in response to the fact that many councillors expressed their criticisms without being backed up with any clear facts.

He reiterated the importance for councillors to express their ideas, dealing with certain problems, based on objective backgrounds so as to enable the city administration to take their criticism as input to help solve certain cases.

He was happy to see that most councillors have shown their intentions to be outspoken. However, it would be better if they also supported their ideas with strong facts.

The increasing number of criticisms based on facts are vital to help improve the quality of the council as an institution, which should work hand in hand with the city administration, he said.

"In a bid to help improve the Council's performance, councillors should fulfill three qualifications: good personality, high level of knowledge and neat physical appearance," Ritonga said.

In general, Ritonga said that the quality of the City Council has improved significantly this year.

He said that the council managed to ratify 14 city regulations, including three regarding progressive tax on vehicles and wholesale trading proposed on the initiative of the council.

By comparison, the council approved only 12 regulations last year, he said.

Another achievement recorded by the council was the recently held seminar on land reclamation, with the aim of making the councillors know more about the city's plan to build a waterfront city along the north coast, he said.

"The seminar was intended to enrich the councillors' knowledge about land reclamation and to prepare them for when the city administration proposes new drafts on the regulations, regarding the city's extension through the reclamation works," Ritonga said.

He said the council has already made various suggestions to the city administration before implementing land reclamation.

Ritonga denied allegation that the city administration has been neglecting the council in the barter process of city properties with private developers to make way for the construction of modern projects, including apartments and condominiums.

"Yes, there are some cases in which the city administration did not give any reaction to questions raised by the councillors regarding the barter deal. However, I consider this as carelessness because when I filed a complaint to the governor, I received a positive response," Ritonga said.

He also explained that the council's members have conducted a total of 158 field trips throughout the city to observe problems filed by Jakartans. (yns)