Council vows to focus more on city problems
Council vows to focus more on city problems
Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Amid criticism that the City Council has yet to address crucial
problems experienced by most Jakarta residents after nearly a
year into their term of office, the council has vowed to focus
more on clean water supplies and the fate of street vendors.
Council speaker Ade Surapriatna acknowledged the council had
only passed a few bylaws over the past year and had apparently
made little progress is tackling problems in the city, saying
that the council needed more time to find effective solutions.
"Since last year, we have spent most of our time focusing on
how we, councillors, can consolidate ourselves before proceeding
with the making of clear and determined actions to fix the
situation in the near future," he said over the weekend.
Among problems which would be prioritized were the scarcity of
clean water in the city as well as the provision of space for
street vendors.
According to him, the council's board of leaders had agreed
last week to start prioritizing the handling of several problems
and reducing less important activities, like conducting field
visits.
Critics have said that the council has spent too much time
making visits to the offices of city agencies, municipal agencies
and subdistricts.
Unfortunately, so far only a few reports on the results of
these visits have ever been released to the media, raising
suspicion that the visits were only a ploy to get money from the
concerned agencies or offices or to garner a part in city
projects.
A source with a city agency complained that his agency was
visited by two different council commissions over the last two
weeks.
"We don't mind if they come here only to supervise our works
as we can provide the required data. But, they (councillors) were
asking for other things that we could not provide," he said,
declining to further elaborate on what these "other things" were.
Ade acknowledged that the board had received reports that some
councillors had asked for a share in some city projects.
"But, so far, we have yet find any evidence to corroborate the
allegations. We have also checked the information with the
administration, however, they (the administration) could not
confirm the reports," he said.
He called on people with knowledge of any violations of
discipline and law conducted by the councillors to pass on
information to the council's board of leaders or disciplinary
board, which would follow up on the report.
Since the installation of the 75 councillors in August last
year, the council has only managed to pass four bylaws, including
the bylaw on air pollution and the bylaw on 2005 city budget. The
previous council produced 11 bylaws in the last three months of
their term.
The council plans to deliberate 10 draft bylaws.
In addition to making legislation, the council plays a key
role in controlling the city administration and in supervising
the planning and use of the city budget.
10 draft bylaws in the pipeline
1. draft bylaw on land acquisition for public projects (to implement
controversial Presidential Regulation No. 36/2005 on land acquisition)
2. draft bylaw on revision of Bylaw 11/1988 on public order
3. draft bylaw on master plan for Thousand Islands Regency
4. draft bylaw on sewage treatment
5. draft bylaw on distribution of forest products
6. draft bylaw on industry and trade policies
7. draft bylaw on side revenue for the city administration
8. revision of a bylaw on civil servant investigators
9. revision of the bylaw on tap water services
10.revision of the bylaw on the use of groundwater
Source: City Council