Mayors urged to account for relinquished loot
JAKARTA (JP): City councilors demanded Jakarta's five mayors yesterday to account for every item of loot people have relinquished through government offices.
They said they wanted all surrendered items to be properly recorded and reported to the governor who would see to it that the plunder gets back to the rightful owners.
Councilor Afif Hamka, the deputy chief of Commission E for people's welfare, said there should be no tolerance for government officials who steal the relinquished booty.
Many people have given up goods they looted from shops during last week's widespread rioting that saw the ransacking and burning of thousands of stores and malls in Greater Jakarta.
People submitted looted items to their respective neighborhood or village chiefs.
Official statistics show that at least 2,547 shop/houses, 40 malls, 1,819 stores, 383 office buildings, 535 banks, 24 restaurants, 15 markets, 12 hotels, 1,026 houses, two churches, 11 police stations, 46 automotive repair stations, 1,119 cars, 821 motorcycles and nine gas stations were damaged or burned during the riots.
Afif also demanded the administration to report to the City Council on its handling of the returned booty as well.
"The administration must also encourage owners of the looted stores to visit district and mayoralty offices to see if any of their goods are among those surrendered."
Another councilor, Abdul Halim from Commission D for development affairs, said the administration must set a deadline for the owners of the returned goods to claim their property.
"All returned items not claimed by the set deadline must be auctioned on the order of local district courts," he said.
Abdul said the money derived from the auctions could be used to finance the development of public facilities.
East Jakarta Mayor Sudarsono said yesterday that 127 types of stolen goods had been relinquished through five districts -- Pondok Kopi, Klender, Pondok Bambu, Rawa Buaya and Balekambang.
Sudarsono declined to estimate the value of the goods but said most of them were electronic and household products.
An East Jakarta mayoralty spokeswoman, Eni, said yesterday that the total number of relinquished items exceeded 500, ranging from soap to electric fans.
"Most of the goods returned to the Rawa Buaya district office were stolen from shops in Jatinegara. A lot of the goods stolen from the Yogya department store were surrendered to the Klender, Pondok Kopi and Pondok bambu district chief offices," she told The Jakarta Post.
According to Eni, people who returned the goods to the Balekambang district office said that the items were looted from the Ramayana store in Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta.
"They said it was not hard to reach the store from their area. They crossed a bridge and walked along the river to get there," she said.
The mayoralty is still waiting for reports on returned items from other districts, including Cakung, she said.
She estimated that at least 100 stolen items had been returned to the Cakung district office.
"They were looted from Sahabat supermarket on Jl. Raya Bekasi and 50 shop/houses in the nearby Taman Modern housing estate. They included consumer goods, clothes and electronic items," she added.
In Penjaringan district, North Jakarta, a large quantity of machinery stolen from two factories, PT AKS and PT Edwin, have been relinquished.
People from Penjaringan and surrounding districts have returned hundreds of stolen items, including 13 dynamos, 20 articles of heavy machinery, 24 cutting machines, 22 hacksaw blades, one audio amplifier and 90 bales of fabric.
In Central Jakarta, more than 363 stolen items have been returned through several districts, 215 of which have been reportedly claimed by their owners. (cst)