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