Many city buildings do not have permits

JAKARTA (JP): A city councilor has criticized the city administration for its failure to set an example to the public by abiding by existing laws to issue permits for city-owned building.

Syarif Zulkarnaen, a member of Commission C for financial affairs, said on Wednesday the administration's failure could be seen from the fact that only about 5 percent of the 8,277 city- owned buildings had building certificates.

He said, "It could become a bad precedent when people see the bad example of the administration.

"How can the administration ask people to abide by the law if the administration itself ignores it?" he asked.

Syarif presented data from the city supplies office which shows that only 480 city-owned buildings have proper documents. However, the data did not reveal locations or other information.

When asked to comment on the matter, head of the supplies office Dadang Ruskandar said it had happened because in the past there was no regulation requiring government buildings to have permits, "because building permits were only required for the public."

However, under former governor Surjadi Soedirdja, who governed the city from 1992 to 1997, the administration had started to issue every building assets with the licenses, Dadang said.

The data also shows that the ownership of 104 out of 5,999 plots of land said to belong to the administration is still in dispute. (ind)