Councilors want a say in city parking management
Councilors want a say in city parking management
JAKARTA (JP): The City Council has joined in the process of
vetting private contractors that will have the right to manage
Jakarta's lucrative parking facilities.
Council chairman M.H. Ritonga said, however, that he would
insist on looking at the proposals of more than one contractor
before making his mind up about which of them would be proposed
to the City Administration.
Ritonga said the council will recommend one firm after
intensively studying the various proposals.
The City administration has already set up a team to look into
the matter. It received proposals from at least 19 private
contractors on how they intend to manage the parking facilities
in the city. Out of these, only one company survived and the
other 18 have withdrawn their proposals.
The lone survivor, PT Ikabina Karya Sukses, has already made
presentations before the city municipality office and council.
Ritonga, who met with Ikabina executives at his office last
week, however, did not appear too impressed.
He said on Thursday that he was encouraging other bidders to
come to his office and make their proposals known.
He also denied earlier press reports suggesting that he had
given his endorsement to Ikabina during his meeting with
executives of the company. "I never said that their concept had
been approved, they just wanted to begin presenting their
proposals to us," said Ritonga, a former city police chief.
One of Ikabina's controversial proposal is to make the parking
receipts carry attractive door prizes. The idea behind this is to
encourage motorists to insist on getting receipts from parking
attendants, and therefore allow the authorities to better monitor
the revenues collected from parking.
The parking management is currently handled by BP Parkir, an
agency under the municipality. It has been widely criticized for
consistently failing to meet the revenue targets set by the city
administration amidst allegations that some of the funds had been
tampered with.
Ikabina is no longer the only bidder for the project.
City Secretary Harun Al Rasyid said early this week that the
city administration is still reviewing proposals from four
parties, namely BP Parkir, PT Ikabina Karya Sukses and two other
firms, whose names are not being released.
The bidding is still open for other interested firms, he said.
Harun expressed his disappointment that the proposals only
concentrate on the revenues that the bidders hope to raise and
contribute to the administration's coffers.
He indicated that what he wanted was an overall concept on
parking management, including its function as part of easing
traffic congestion, and the security aspect.
Ikabina Karya Sukses is reportedly offering to contribute Rp
25.9 billion each year to the administration.
This is in sharp contrast to the Rp 14.6 billion target that
the administration has imposed on BP Parkir for the 1994/95
fiscal year which ended on March 31.
The final amount collected for the fiscal year is still not
known but in the first nine months of the year, BP Parkir only
managed Rp 9 billion. (bsr)