Jakarta administration fails to understand poverty causes

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.