Effectiveness of ID card sweeps questioned

Novan Iman Santosa, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

City councillors questioned on Thursday the effectiveness of the administration's plan to conduct a sweep on ID cards to curb the flow of migrants, commenting that it might promote corruption among city officials.

Muchayar, vice chairman of the Justice Party (PK) faction, said that such raids would not solve the problem as it also paved the way for officials to charge illegal levies.

"Subdistrict officials may give migrants the papers needed to stay here; at a price, of course. Or the migrants can bribe the heads of their neighborhood units (RT) and community units (RW)."

In the past few years, the city administration had conducted Operasi KTP, or Operation ID Cards, in an effort to curb the uncontrollable influx of migrants to the capital.

The City Population Agency claimed on Wednesday that during the Idul Fitri holiday season, 2.64 million Jakartans left the city, and at the end of the holiday, about 2.87 million had returned.

The possibility of illegal levies and other forms of embezzlement resulting from such operations was also the concern of Syamsidar Siregar of the National Mandate Party (PAN) faction, who questioned the accountability of funds provided to send the migrants home.

"All this time, the population agency has always said that it has returned migrants to their hometowns every year by providing bus tickets.

"But who can guarantee that the number of returned migrants as reported by the population agency is true?" she asked.

Syamsidar also revealed that the draft bylaw on new population would require migrants to provide a guarantee fee of some Rp 50,000 to Rp 100,000 when entering Jakarta.

"The guarantee fee will cover the cost of returning a migrant to his or her hometown if he or she fails to find a job after six months," she said.

"This, again, opens the possibilities of swindling funds. Are you sure the officials will refrain from misusing the guarantee fees?"

She also said that there was also the possibility that officials would not return the fees to migrants.

"On the other hand, who can guarantee that a migrant will directly go home after the fee has been reimbursed?"

The city administration is now drafting a new bylaw which will give them more authority to expel poor, unskilled migrants.

Activists have repeatedly criticized the government for trying to make Jakarta a closed city, saying that it is against the Constitution and is a violation of human rights.

Both Muchayar and Syamsidar, however, supported the administration, saying that migrants wishing to come to Jakarta should have a secure job offer, or at least someone sponsoring them.

"It would be ideal if the migrants have secured a job here already, because we know then that they would be able to support themselves," said Muchayar, "but they should have their family members or other relatives here to be responsible for their presence in the capital."

Muchayar also supported the controversial raid on migrants, saying that it was important to uphold population regulations, while remarking that the raids were not intended to create a closed city.

"The raid is not aimed at closing the city, but is purely aimed at upholding the city population regulation, which requires each and every citizen to have a valid ID card," he said.

"Such action is also needed to prevent people without clear backgrounds and occupations from coming to the city.

"Jakarta is still an open city as long as the migrant follows the population regulation of informing the heads of their RT and RW of their presence ," he added.