LBH provides lawyers for Tanah Abang fire victims
LBH provides lawyers for Tanah Abang fire victims
Ahmad Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH-Jakarta) will provide
lawyers for victims of the Tanah Abang market fire if the latter
need assistance in suing city-owned market operator PD Pasar Jaya
for its negligence which caused the fire on Wednesday.
"We will just prepare our lawyers if traders of the Tanah
Abang market want to sue PD Pasar Jaya as the market operator,"
LBH-Jakarta's urban division head Tubagus Haryo Karbyanto told
The Jakarta Post on Saturday.
Tubagus said PD Pasar Jaya could be sued for neglecting to
provide proper fire equipment, such as fire extinguishers and
water hydrants, in the market and its vicinity.
He said that although the market operator claimed to have
equipped the market with proper fire equipment, the traders could
still sue the operator for not maintaining the equipment
properly.
"As market operator, PD Pasar Jaya has an obligation to
provide fire equipment and maintain it. If they have not done
that, the traders could sue them," he said.
The Tanah Abang market, the country's largest textile market,
was destroyed by a fire on Wednesday which started at about 12:30
p.m. and as of Saturday the fire could not be completely
extinguished.
Fire fighters have complained that the lack of access to the
market and unusable water hydrants had made it difficult for them
to extinguish the fire.
The fire fighters said the market's biggest water pump, which
supplied water to the hydrants, was damaged due to poor
maintenance.
The city fire department sent a letter earlier this month,
asking PD Pasar Jaya to check the fire equipment in the market,
but it never responded.
Separately, lawyer Azas Tigor Nainggolan of the Jakarta
Residents Forum (Fakta) expressed his readiness to join LBH to
help the fire victims in their suit.
"The victims could file a class action suit if they suffered
losses because of the fire. They could demand a certain amount of
compensation from PD Pasar Jaya," Tigor told the Post on
Saturday.
He regretted a statement by PD Pasar Jaya president Syahrir
Tanjung, who said the fire was just a "disaster" without
admitting his company's failure to manage the market properly.
The fire which destroyed about 5,500 kiosks, triggered
speculation among traders, that the market was intentionally
burned.
The speculation was based on a report that the rental rights
for the majority of the 5,500 kiosks will end this year. PD Pasar
Jaya had planned to build a new market building, but the plan was
rejected by the traders.
However, Syahrir Tanjung has denied speculation that his
company intentionally burned the market, although he admitted
that it had planned the development of the new Tanah Abang market
since 2001.
"It's not true. We also suffered losses in the fire since this
market contributes one third of our revenue," he told reporters
at City Hall on Thursday.
He said some Rp 33 billion (US$3.6 million) of PD Pasar Jaya's
total annual income of Rp 100 billion was obtained from rental
fees from kiosks at the Tanah Abang market.