Draft on subdistrict councils submitted

JAKARTA (JP): Members of the City Council team preparing for the establishment of mayoralty and subdistrict councils have submitted a draft of city bylaws on the establishment of councils in the capital's 265 subdistricts.

"The team has decided to first deliberate on the establishment of councils at the subdistrict level, because the members of these councils will later have the right to determine the composition of the mayoralty councils," team chairman M. Syarifin Maloko said on Friday after submitting the draft to the City Council.

Jakarta is divided into five mayoralties, 43 districts and 265 subdistricts. Based on a 1999 law, several districts located in Pulau Seribu, or the Thousand Islands, off the Jakarta Bay will be removed from the jurisdiction of the North Jakarta mayoralty to form a separate regency.

Syarifin said the proposed bylaws submitted on Friday stipulated that members of the subdistrict councils should be nonpartisan.

"Civil servants, police and military personnel are prohibited from becoming members of the local councils," he said.

According to the draft bylaws, members of the subdistrict councils will have the right to ask questions of and give opinions to the City Council and nominate members for the mayoralty councils.

The team was founded in November to deliberate the establishment of both subdistrict and mayoralty councils as stipulated in Law No. 34/1999 on the administration of Jakarta as the capital of Indonesia.

"Members of the councils will accept and channel the aspirations of locals, empower them, give suggestions to the respective subdistrict heads on day-to-day administrative affairs and help explain their subdistricts' policies to local residents," he said.

Syarifin said the proposed bylaws consisted of 10 chapters and 27 articles. (05)