Kopaja cooperative says new fares no help

JAKARTA (JP): Owners of minibuses claim that the increase in transportation which was announced by the government early this month does not benefit them.

Rasmani, an official of the Kopaja minibus cooperative, said over the weekend that the fare increases are not beneficial to the cooperative because the bus owners have greatly increased their rents.

"Most of the drivers refuse to pay the new rental fees determined by the cooperative, saying they cannot afford it," Rasmani said.

Citing an example, he said a driver who should pay Rp 100,000 (US$43.47) per day is only willing to pay Rp 85,000.

Kopaja increased the rental fees the day after the government announced the increases in public transport fares on April 3.

The new rent ranges from Rp 80,000 per day to Rp 140,000, an increase from Rp 60,000 to Rp 110,000 per day.

The government raised the fare for minibuses from Rp 300 to Rp 400.

Rasmani said the increase still does not cover operational costs given the poor condition of most of the minibuses owned by the cooperative's members.

"There are about 700 minibuses owned by Kopaja's members that should be repaired. This is one of the factors that hampers our plan to improve services," he said.

Rasmani said it is difficult for minibus owners to make bigger profits because they don't own other types of transport vehicles like Patas (quick and limited) buses.

When asked about the opportunity offered by the city administration to operate 50 bigger capacity buses as Patas buses, Rahmani said the cooperative is willing to accept the offer if the city revokes the requirement to scrap two minibuses for one big bus.

"We'd have to scrap 100 minibuses for the 50 buses. We can't do that because we would lose the billions of rupiah which has been invested in those minibuses," he said.

Last year the city administration decided to give minibus owners the opportunity to buy 100 bigger capacity buses to be operated as Patas buses, but they would have to scrap 200 minibuses if they accepted the offer.(yns)