Hindarto vows to punish corrupt police officers

JAKARTA (JP): City Police Chief Maj. Gen. Mochammad Hindarto pledged yesterday to punish any officers found to have illegally collected extra fees from vehicle owners who failed to show their old license plates when applying for the new ones.

"I promise you that I will not hesitate to punish these errant officers. They will be dealt with sternly," Hindarto told reporters yesterday.

He was reacting to press reports that people who applied for new license plates at the East Jakarta samsat vehicle administration were required to submit their old license plates before receiving new ones -- and were charged Rp 5,000 by police officers if they were unable to do so.

Aside from the one in East Jakarta, the city has another samsat office at the city police headquarters.

Several people, including city police and city tax officials, run operations at samsat offices.

All people applying for new vehicle licenses must already pay several fees before receiving the licenses.

However, Fauzie Alvi Yassin, chief of the city tax office, was quick to announce that his men were not involved in the scam.

"The money does not go into the municipality's coffers since it is not included among the various kinds of taxes collected by the city tax office," he was quoted by Pos Kota as saying.

Security

In a related development, Col. Soeroso, the newly-installed chief of the traffic directorate at the city police headquarters, said yesterday three traffic police officers posted at the East Jakarta samsat service are being questioned over the case.

He, however, refused to identify the three men.

"But we're waiting for formal complaints or reports from the public who have been asked to pay such illegal levies. It'll be difficult for us to conduct any further investigation if there are no written complaints," City police spokesman Lt. Col. Latief Rabar quoted Soeroso as saying yesterday.

Soeroso admitted that the rule of submitting old license plates was made by the directorate. The rule went into effect in February to prevent old license plates from being abused by irresponsible parties.

To prevent this, the old plates will now be mutilated so that no one can use them again, he said.

Misuse of old plates, he said, could lead to suspicion on the part of the police that the former owners might be involved in a crime.

"However, it's not necessary for vehicle owners to pay if they fail to hand over the old license plates," Soeroso said.(jsk/bsr)