High prices for kiosks ironic, say experts

JAKARTA (JP): The thousands of vacant kiosks in city markets are evidence that the city administration has short-sighted policies, experts say.

The need of informal and traditional traders are not taken into account and is made worse by red tape and corruption, an anthropologist and an economist said separately yesterday.

"The empty kiosks are ironic as traders' demand for space is very high," said economist Didik J. Rachbini. "Something must be wrong in the market policy and management."

Referring to reports that some 6,000 kiosks in markets across the city are empty, Didik said this is similar to empty apartments built for former slum dwellers.

"In practice, the prices (of kiosk rents) would be much higher than they are, besides numerous fees and levies for all sorts of papers," he said.

The head of the city's development bureau, Albert Napitupulu, said kiosks rents range from Rp 800,000 (US$342) to Rp 3.6 million annually.

Didik, the director of the Institute for the Development of Economics and Finance, said facing red tape and levies is a common experience of small scale entrepreneurs.

Some 100,000 unskilled workers and small-scale vendors enter the city each year, "with no access to the city's spatial policy". This policy prioritizes spatial order in which the needs of low income people are yet to be incorporated, he said.

"Traders are shrewd," he added. "They will certainly enter a market if they feel the places are strategic."

Urban anthropologist Ari Indrayono Mahar said prioritizing spatial order is not wrong, but needs more discussion.

"Certain commodities will only survive in certain markets, and at certain prices," said Ari, a staff member at University of Indonesia's Center for Institutional Development Research.

Traders selling food and fresh vegetables often complain that buyers will not go up stairs to shop. Groceries are sold on the lower levels of traditional markets, whereas in new or renovated markets electronics and other crowd pleasers are sold on the lower floors.

Consumers are mostly office workers with little time to shop, and they also think prices are higher in renovated markets, Ari said.

"That's our shopping culture; we still think things are expensive if the market is not a traditional, dirty place," Ari said.

Also, Ari said traders in traditional markets and on sidewalks have a mutual advantageous relationship with local thugs and officials.

"There is a network which does not just disappear with the renovating of a market," he said.

Traders willingly pay both official and unofficial fees as long as their security is guaranteed, he said.

Yesterday Governor Surjadi Soedirdja urged traders to be more active in improving their own welfare by forming cooperatives.

He made the call at a meeting with some 2,000 traders, among them members of the cooperative under city-owned PD Pasar Jaya market. At the event held at a market near the Kemayoran Fairgrounds, Surjadi also told traders that they "must be open to change, renovation and progress".

The researchers further regretted that lower level kiosks are rented out to traders who gain larger profits.

"It is illogical that electronic traders get the ground floors," Ari said.

The experts said a will to render better services by officials, and better organizing among traders, would lead to a way out of the problem of empty kiosks. (anr)