Municipality studying parking fee proposal
Municipality studying parking fee proposal
JAKARTA (JP): The municipality has yet to decide on a better
system to collect parking fees, because various proposals from
the City Council are still being studied.
The proposals, which include offers to manage the city's
parking fees by private companies, are not that easy to decide
on, Deputy Governor for Economic and Development Affairs, Tb.M.
Rais said.
He said yesterday that the city must be cautious in selecting
the offers.
"We have to consider that the private sector is, after all,
seeking profits, while we have to serve the public," Rais said.
In August of last year, the administration rejected offers by
the privately owned PT Ikabina Karya Sukses, which proposed to
make the collection of parking receipts attractive by providing
motorists with opportunities to win prizes.
One of the chronic problems of parking fee collection is the
reluctance of parking attendants to hand over receipts in return
for fees from motorists.
On Jan. 18, also last year, private firms pulled out of a bid
to manage the lucrative, but high-risk project to manage the
city's parking fees.
Meanwhile, Council Speaker M.H. Ritonga urged executives to
decide as quickly as possible on the best parking system from the
proposals.
"The municipality should study the several concepts and have
the courage to decide on the one it thinks is the best," Ritonga
said.
The city could then implement the system through a trial
period, Ritonga said. In any case, the decision should be made
immediately, he said.
The City Parking Agency has been under fire for years for its
inability to collect fees according to expected targets.
Only 65 percent of the expected fees were collected in the
last fiscal year of 1994/1995. Expected revenue for this fiscal
year is Rp 16.3 billion (US$6.9 million) for the city, with
around 1.9 million vehicles.
A councilor once estimated some Rp 43 billion per year could
be collected from only 400,000 cars parked once a day, with fees
of Rp 300 each.
Rais also said the city would soon propose a draft on new
parking fees to the council.
On Wednesday, the head of the council commission in charge of
revenues, Helmy AR Syihab, said many parking tickets issued by
private parties do not have official serial numbers and are not
perforated by the parking agency.
This leads to losses of billions of rupiah in city revenue, he
said. According to a 1994 rule, private firms issuing parking
tickets should pay 25 percent of their income to the City Revenue
Agency. (anr)