Governor Sutiyoso told to dismiss directors of ailing city-owned firms
Ahmad Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Disappointed with the poor performance of city-owned firms, the City Council urged Governor Sutiyoso on Friday to dismiss the firms' directors on account of the small contribution the firms made to the 2002 City Budget.
"Just fire the directors of the firms and replace them with professionals. We should conduct a fit and proper test for the candidate directors," the council's deputy chairman, Chudlary Syafei Hadzami, told reporters.
Chudlary, of the United Development Party (PPP), however, rejected the idea of liquidating the companies or selling them to private investors, saying that they were city assets and could still be improved.
"Do not appoint pensioners to do the work of directors," he said, referring to the retired senior city officials who are often appointed as directors in the firms.
With assets totaling tens of trillions of rupiah, according to the latest data from the City Revenue Agency, the 28 city-owned firms have only been targeted to contribute Rp 55.9 billion, or about 0.5 percent to the current budget, which amounted to Rp 10.2 trillion.
As of November, they only realized about Rp 24 billion, which was mainly obtained from city-owned retailer PT Waserda (Rp 18 billion), leisure operator PT Pembangunan Jaya Ancol (Rp 6 billion), and developer PT Kawasan Berikat Nusantara (Rp 4 billion).
Eleven of the 28 companies contributed nothing to the city budget this year. They included developers PD Pembangunan Sarana Jaya, PT Pembangunan Jaya, PT Graha Sahari Surya Jaya, PT Pembangunan Pluit Jaya, and PT Pembangunan Pantura Jaya, as well as Bank DKI.
Five other companies involved in various businesses that were also unable to contribute to the city budget were PT Bumi Grafika Jaya, PT Determinan Jaya, PT Alumindo Perkasa, PT Abatoir Surya Jaya and PT Pakuan Internasional.
According to city data, the Rp 10.2 trillion in budget funds were mainly provided by vehicle taxes (Rp 2.5 trillion), land and property taxes (Rp 2.5 trillion), contributions from the central government (Rp 3.5 trillion), and hotel, restaurant and entertainment taxes (Rp 500 billion).
Governor Sutiyoso claimed on Friday that the city administration had started to apply fit and proper tests when recruiting directors for city-owned firms.
"We have conducted fit and proper tests, and recruited professionals," Sutiyoso told reporters at City Hall.
However, he admitted that many of the firms still had a poor performance. But this was mainly due to the prolonged economic crisis.
The governor said that he had given the companies two years to improve themselves, or else be liquidated or merged with other city-owned companies.
"We will merge the firms or even liquidate them if they do not perform well," he added.
The administration merged several city-owned developers that suffered losses in past years into developer PT Jakarta Propertindo.
According to the data, the company contributed Rp 2.8 billion to the budget this year, exceeding its target of Rp 1.8 trillion.