No bylaw makes city impotent against parking operators

Ahmad Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The city administration admitted on Tuesday that it could not punish private parking operators for charging higher parking rates than the city's official one because of an absence of a bylaw on parking rates.

Speaking at a hearing with the City Council's Commission D for development affairs, the chief of the City Parking Agency, Yani Mulyadi, refused to revoke the operators' permits.

"We have no authority to punish operators who charged a higher rate. We are afraid we'll lose again if we are sued by the operators," Yani claimed.

He was responding to the councillors' demand that permits of the operators, including the largest, PT Secure Parking Indonesia, be revoked.

Commission D deputy chairman Ali Imron Hussein urged the administration to take legal action against the private parking operators.

"If needed we should revoke their permits. It's sad that the administration is afraid of private companies," Ali of the United Development Party said.

According to Gubernatorial Decree No. 1698/1999, the parking rate for a motorcycle is only Rp 500 per hour while for cars it is Rp 1,000 per hour.

But private parking operators recently increased the rate for motorcycles to Rp 1,000 per hour and Rp 2,000 per hour with an additional rate of Rp 1,000 for every hour thereafter.

Two years ago, the city administration closed parking lots, which were managed by the firms, for charging higher parking rates.

Dissatisfied with the administration's move, the firms filed a lawsuit against the administration at the Jakarta Administrative Court, which ruled that the administration's move was illegal.

The court said that the gubernatorial decree could not be used to regulate private parking operators.

In light of this decision, the administration recently proposed a bylaw on parking rates to the City Council.

Besides regulating parking rates, the bylaw draft would require private operators to pay a parking tax, which amounts to about 20 percent of their income, to the city administration.