Monkey business?

Monkey business?

The Jakarta administration's plan to spend some Rp 3.2 billion
(about US$3.2 million) on the care of four African gorillas --
donations from a sister zoo in Britain to the Ragunan Zoo in
South Jakarta -- is drawing fire from irate members of the
Jakarta City Council (DPRD). And quite understandably so,
considering the circumstances.

"It's unfair," fumed Azis Boeang, a legislator of the
Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP) faction in the
council. "Why should the administration spend Rp 3.2 billion a
year on subsidies to look after four gorillas while a proposed
insurance plan for council members, which would cost no more than
Rp 4.3 billion, is killed," he reportedly complained to the
Jakarta newspaper Kompas.

To present Jakartans with a clearer picture of what it would
cost them to maintain the four gorillas, another disgruntled DPRD
member, Ridho Kamaludin, of the United Development Party (PPP)
faction, came up with a more detailed calculation.

"A gorilla could live up to an age of 55 or 60 years," Ridho
explained. "The primates are at present only five years old. That
means the city might have to continue to pay for their care for
50 years or more. Imagine the costs involved."

Assuming that Rp 3.2 billion a year is indeed spent on the
care of the gorillas, according to Ridho's calculations, the
total amount expended would be roughly Rp 266.66 million a month,
or Rp 8.8 million a day, which makes an average of Rp 2.2 million
per primate per day.

"It would be all right to subsidize the gorillas as long as
they produce revenue for the city administration. But in this
case the income would only go to the Ragunan Zoo," he said. Not
surprisingly, the complaints aired in the city's legislative
council are readily echoed at the community level.

While people may argue about the need -- or, indeed, the
propriety -- for the Jakarta city administration to spend a
proposed Rp 4.3 billion a year in taxpayers' money to insure
legislators in the city council, there can be no denying the fact
that millions of people in the Indonesian capital are living in
dire need and poverty.

For example, Jakarta's budget for this year sets aside a mere
Rp 3.6 billion to support the so-called informal sector of the
economy, which forms a major potential source of revenue for the
city administration and comprises mostly small traders and other
small-time private entrepreneurs by whose merit the city's
economy has so far managed to persist, crisis upon crisis
notwithstanding.

With hundreds of thousands of residents compelled by
circumstances to live from hand to mouth, staying in cardboard
shacks or sleep under bridges or the eaves of roadside shops
during the night, people naturally question the administration's
decision to spend Rp 8.8 million a day on the care of four
gorillas.

One must appreciate the officials' apparent attention to the
fate of the primates, but Rp 2.2 million a day per animal is for
the overwhelming majority of Jakartans a staggering sum indeed.
In a recent article in Kompas, Dr. Linus Simanjuntak, a prominent
veterinarian and former director of the Ragunan Zoo, calculated
that Rp 100,000 a day per gorilla would be more than enough.

The question on the lips of many Jakartans at present is,
where will the rest of the money go? Suspicions of monkey
business abound.

Considering the circumstances, Jakartans might have reason,
after all, to be thankful for the recent "sweeps" by radicals of
foreign residents in the city. At least that action has
reportedly frightened the present owners of the gorillas in
Britain into deferring sending the animals to Jakarta.

It is not very likely that the gorillas will meet an overly
enthusiastic welcome in this city unless conditions improve
sometime soon.