Councilors worry about quality of school buildings

JAKARTA (JP): The city council has urged the city administration to tighten its supervision of the construction of school buildings to ensure quality.

Siti Maryam Ahmad, secretary of the council's Commission E, which oversees people's welfare, said that the construction of many school buildings has not been in accordance with the city administration's requirements.

"This shows that supervision has been very weak," she said yesterday after a hearing with the Jakarta education office and other related offices at the city council.

"The city administration should improve supervision, or the collusion between contractors and the officials in charge will continue to result in sloppy work," Siti added.

The commission has received reports that as many as 103 elementary school buildings in the city are now in poor condition and need renovation.

Siti said the reports indicated corruption; in which contractors have received less money than that allocated for the projects. "This situation has forced them to build inferior buildings," she added.

The contractors had to use low-quality materials and, consequently, the school buildings need renovation prematurely, Siti said.

Commission member Ary Amier Armas said that, in North Jakarta alone, about 30 percent of a total of 481 buildings are in poor condition and need to be renovated soon.

"Some of the buildings are relatively new and their poor condition is mainly due to distortions of the construction plans," he said.

Head of the Jakarta office of the education and culture ministry, Kusnan Ismukanto, said he had never received any report of corruption. However, he called on headmasters not to sign letters of acknowledgement where buildings were poorly constructed.

According to city procedures, headmasters should sign a letter of acknowledgement as soon as construction work on new school buildings has been completed.

The city administration has allocated about Rp 19 billion (US$8.63 million) of its 1995/1996 budget for the construction and renovation of 58 elementary school buildings.

Reports show that 30 schools have non-school buildings within their grounds, Siti said, adding that this is against the rules. One school in Taman Sari, West Jakarta, has boarding houses on its grounds, she said.

"This is against the regulations and (means) we cannot guarantee the students' safety," she added.(yns/32)