Fires and supervision
Fires and supervision
Fires in public places haunt Indonesian urbanites because
nobody -- certainly not the city administration -- has put
forward a workable fire prevention plan. The hazard of a
conflagration is not limited to slum areas, but can hit high-rise
buildings and marketplaces. The number of casualties is appalling
in many cases.
The latest tragedy, the March 29 fire in a Bogor
shopping center, burned 10 department-store employees alive. A
number of killer fires have been blamed on careless building
owners, electrical short circuits, the inadequacy of fire
prevention systems and the absence of decent fire escapes (forget
helipads).
Free from any responsibility are the city officials in charge
of regular supervision of fire prevention equipment in public
buildings.
The city administration complains about the lack of the
prevention equipment but does not punish violators. The building
owners' stubbornness has made the city's fire inspectors
reluctant to carry out their jobs. This is compounded by a lack
of supervision, long the most notorious weakness of the
bureaucracy.
The city public order office recently claimed it was too short
of staff to check the safety of buildings used for entertainment
activities. Their excuse flounders because they seem to have
enough officers to regularly round up prostitutes and conduct
brutal night raids on boarding houses to ferret out female
workers or students who are suspected of not having a city
identification card.
The infrequent safety inspections of high-rise buildings,
marketplaces, entertainment halls, restaurants and factories is
no longer just a demonstration of official indifference, but
illustrates the administration's lack of respect for public
safety.
The city administration is responsible for the supervision of
fire prevention systems because it issues the building licenses
in the first place. To get permits, building owners must deal
with insufferably corrupt officials, a fact that even Jakarta
Governor Surjadi Soedirdja has complained about. Some of the many
required licenses are superfluous; the excess apparently stemming
from the fact that the more licenses needed, the more opportunity
officials have to impose illegal levies.
When a fire breaks out, however, the building owners, or their
managers, are blamed for any deaths. Never has a city fire
inspector or an official in charge of issuing licenses been
brought to court for his carelessness.
The lack of responsibility stems from a lack of supervision
and the indifference of fire victims and their families, usually
poor people, who see any accident as the hand of fate. They tend
to blame their families or themselves after tragedy hits.
The public is uncertain, or completely ignorant, of their
legal right to sue negligent employers, building owners and the
city administration for any damage to their property or any death
in their family.
It is high time the government disciplined its fire inspectors
by trying them in court for their irresponsibility. Establishing
responsibility might deter further tragic carelessness.