DLLAJR 'corrupt' officials transferred

JAKARTA (JP): Eighteen employees of a vehicle roadworthiness test station in Srengseng Sawah, South Jakarta, have been transferred to other posts following a thorough investigation into their alleged roles in collecting illegal levies.

The head of the vehicle testing unit of the City Land Transportation Agency (DLLAJR), Abubakar, said in a statement released on Monday that the undisciplined employees were removed from their positions on Oct. 1.

He, however, did not name them or say to where they had been moved.

Reports of the illegal levies collection emerged last Thursday after a city councilor found that the cost for a test at the Srengseng Sawah testing station had jumped to Rp 105,000 (US$9.75), compared to Rp 20,000 as stipulated in city regulation 9/1992.

Commission C for financial affairs member Asrul Harun, who reportedly runs a transportation firm, claimed that he had to pay such an amount for his car test. These included Rp 24,000 for an application form, Rp 6,000 for a car wash, Rp 5,000 for an emissions test, Rp 5,000 for a speedometer test, Rp 5,000 for a brake test, Rp 5,000 for a chassis test and Rp 5,000 for a headlight test.

Other additional fees were Rp 20,000 for a test result book, Rp 15,000 for a medicine box, Rp 1,000 for parking and Rp 5,000 for the installation of a license plate, he said. There were two other charges that he did not clarify.

According to Abubakar, his office had never set such tariffs.

"Some of our customers have given (extra) money (to our staff) but most of them give nothing and our office has never set such high tariffs," he insisted.

From now on, he said, all of his personnel "would no longer want to receive anything" for their services.

Abubakar said there were numerous opportunities to collect illegal levies at the test stations because the present regulations allowed other people, instead of the vehicle owners, to take the cars to be tested.

"I think the malfeasance happened because the people who were assigned by the owners to take the vehicles to the station wanted to make some money by cooperating with the station's staff," he said.

Sharing Abubakar's view, DLLAJR head J.P. Sepang also denied the existence of widespread illegal practices. He said that public transportation vehicle drivers might have paid scalpers loitering around the station to help them find a shortcut to get the services.

In an attempt to meet the public complaints, Abubakar's office has decided to abolish levies which have no legal grounds, including the Rp 2,500 for a car wash, fees of Rp 2,000 or Rp 3,000 (depending on the car type) for Organda (the public land transportation owners association) and Rp 1,000 for the development of Organda's Jakarta chapter office.

His office would also stop the prerequisite Rp 3,500 charge levied to compensate privately run PT Amanah for painting the worthiness notice on the sides of vehicles.

Abubakar revealed that the number of public transportation vehicles tested at the stations has declined by about 30 percent since the middle of last year due to the prolonged monetary crisis.

"Formerly, there were about 1,400 vehicles being tested a day but it's now only about 1,000 a day," he said.

He estimated that the decline also reflected the sharp decrease in the number of public transportation vehicles currently operating on the streets of the capital due to the skyrocketing prices of spare parts.

Of 6,318 large buses plying the city's streets, only 4,269 of them have undergone vehicle tests, while only 6,738 small buses of the existing 8,141 have taken the tests. (ind)