Jakarta administration fails to understand poverty causes

Muninggar Sri Saraswati and Ahmad Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Poverty remains a major problem in Jakarta because the city administration's programs fail to address its underlying causes, according to an activist.

"The policies are not effective and obviously useless, because the administration fails to understand the root of the problem," J. Sudrijanta of the Jakarta Social Institute said on Friday.

The administration continues to deploy "old, formal methods", which are not suited for the current situation, he said, referring in particular to the administration's policy of excluding people without ID cards from its poverty alleviation programs.

No matter how poor people are, if they fail to show an ID card proving they are Jakarta residents, they are not eligible to receive aid from the administration.

The administration has applied this policy in an effort to curb the flow of migrants to the capital, which an estimated 250,000 people enter annually.

According to the Jakarta Statistics Office, in 2000 more than 340,000 people in Jakarta, with a population of 8.38 million, were officially classified as poor. Of this number, more than 100,000 did not have city identity cards.

Many people who have lived in the capital for years do not have a city identity card, most of them working in informal sectors, including as street vendors.

"The administration should provide them with ID cards and give them space for their businesses instead of evicting them," Sudrijanta told The Jakarta Post.

Sudrijanta, as well as Azas Tigor Nainggolan of the Jakarta Residents Forum, criticized the city administration for not recognizing the informal sector, which could play an important economic role in the capital.

Last year, the informal sector division at the Jakarta Cooperatives and Small Enterprises Agency suggested registering some 600,000 street vendors in the city and taxing them Rp 800 to Rp 1,000 per day.

But Governor Sutiyoso played down the suggestion, saying it was only an idea, adding that the statistics bureau showed there were fewer than 200,000 street vendors in the city.

Even though they are not formally recognized, people in the informal sector, especially street vendors, are often required by city officers to pay illegal fees.

Tigor urged the city administration to scrap its discriminative policies in the handling of the poor.

He warned that the unfair treatment received by the poor would create future conflicts.

The chairwoman of the City Council's Commission E for social welfare affairs, Wasilah Sutrisno, said the city administration should give preferential treatment to poor residents trying to obtain ID cards.

"They should be given free identification cards, especially those who have been living here for years," Wasilah said on Friday.

However, she defended the policy of requiring those wishing to benefit from poverty alleviation programs to have ID cards, saying it was an effort to discourage unskilled people from flooding into the city.