Informal sector

Informal sector

From Merdeka

Somebody wrote to Merdeka recently, warning others to be careful about receiving aid from the Jakarta Administration's Informal Sector Coordination Board. He gave the warning out of concern for his friend who was the head of an informal sector group of 5,000 small traders. He is now in police detention for mismanaging credits from the coordination board.

The man detained had dedicated most of his working life, thereby neglecting his family, to helping the government foster small traders. It all started with credit offers from a simplified and apparently hastily contrived administration process. He channeled the funds to members for general trade. When the credit expired after two years mismanagement became apparent as the loans had become bad debts. The members were mostly urban dwellers.

Strangely enough, during that time the Jakarta Administration never gave technical guidance on business management. Finally the board reported this important man in the informal sector to the police.

He wonders if police detention was a model for solving the Jakarta Administration's problems with regard to small traders of the informal sector.

The governor should guide his staff to foster informal sector traders in order to prevent a case like this from happening again.

NANA JUMHANA

Jakarta