Municipality not to revoke PT CSU permit
JAKARTA (JP): Governor Surjadi Soedirdja said that the city administration will not revoke the land use permit of the company developing the Taman Rasuna apartments. The developers have violated certain regulations by illegally demolishing state-owned property.
"Revoking the permit will only cause more trouble, but we must still penalize them for having violated the regulation," Surjadi told reporters at the City hall yesterday.
He explained that his office was still deciding how the developer is to be punished. "Right now the most important thing is to provide the children of a nearby primary school with a better studying environment. We hope to do this soon by moving them to another place," Surjadi said.
PT Catur Swasakti Utama (CSU) illegally appropriated state- owned properties, including several elementary school buildings and an unoccupied 6,000-square-meter plot.
PT CSU is controlled by Bakrie Investindo, a holding corporation of the Bakrie business group, whose major shareholder is Aburizal Bakrie, the chairman of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin).
Kurniasih, the headmaster of one of the schools, said earlier that 334 of her pupils had abandoned the school building and moved to two other nearby schools. The project had produced thick dust and noise, posing serious health problems to the students.
PT CSU said that they only demolished the two elementary school buildings within the 3.7-hectare area because the physical conditions of the buildings were so bad that they could have tumbled down anytime, particularly with the workers starting to use heavy equipment.
The developer is building one 4,000-apartment unit in the strategic area, popularly known as the Golden Triangle.
The company claims that it was preferable to build temporary classrooms and to demolish the aging school buildings.
Executives at the developing company have admitted that they made a mistake in tearing down the old school buildings without first asking for an official permit from the city administration.
Hope
Deputy governor for Economy and Development affairs Tb. M. Rais hopes that the mayoralty officials do their job in controlling and keeping the developers to their obligation.
"The supervision team in each mayoralty should do their job as they already have the given authority to do so and the municipal administration can not do the job alone," Rais told reporters yesterday.
He pointed out the fact that many developers have failed to meet their obligations, such as by demolishing municipal properties without a permit and for failing to build social and public facilities.
"Supervision officials should be stricter when doing their jobs," Rais said.
Meanwhile the city administration has ordered PT CSU to move its cement mixing plant 500 meters away from a nearby school building to protect students from the dust and noise coming from the plant. (yns)