No more space left for city's street vendors

No more space left for city's street vendors

JAKARTA (JP): Some two million street vendors in the capital
have been going through a vicious cycle every day: trading, being
raided and detained, then freed, trading again, raided again,
detained again, freed, and trading again.

Most of the time they are not detained, but still, their carts
are confiscated by city public order officers and they have to
reclaim them, at of course a much steeper rate than the official
fee.

Dian, a food vendor on the city's main thoroughfare Jl.
Sudirman, said that once she had to pay Rp 50,000 (US$4.5) for a
crate of soft drinks confiscated by the officers.

Meanwhile, Lukman Nanda, a vendor in Kebayoran Baru, South
Jakarta was twice detained by the officers.

He was then sent to the city-run social rehabilitation center
in Kedoya, West Jakarta. The first time was for a month, the
second was only for a week.

"The officers told me that I was going to be taught some
skills, but I wasn't taught anything," he added.

The vendors are hunted down by the city public order officials
because the city administration considers them disorderly and a
disruption to traffic with their carts and kiosks cluttering the
sidewalks and roads.

But experts see the problem of street vendors differently.

Debbie Prabawati, the Jakarta Social Institute's data and
analysis coordinator, noted on Saturday that street vendors
actually contributed billions of rupiah in revenue to the city
administration's coffers.

ISJ recorded that in 1999 alone, the vendors gave some Rp 27
billion (US$2.5 million) in fees.

"This informal sector has also absorbed a huge labor force
especially since the monetary crisis hit the country in mid
1997," Debbie said in a discussion held by ISJ and the Jakarta
Residents Forum (FAKTA).

But ironically, she said, the sector which helps reduce
unemployment and contributes a high income to the city
administration, is being treated like a stepchild.

"Street vendors continue to be raided, arrested, blackmailed
and their belongings damaged. It shows that their right to work
has been violated," Debbie asserted.

Data obtained by ISJ shows that within the first quarter of
this year, there had been 31 rights violations toward street
vendors, which were mostly committed by city administration
officers.

"Clearing the city streets of street vendors does not solve
the problem. The city administration should organize them, not
evict them," Debbie added.

Marco Kusumawijaya, an expert on city spatial planning, said
that the capital has never taken into account the informal sector
like street vendors in its development plan.

"Since Sukarno's era, the development in the capital has been
aimed toward creating a modern image of Indonesia. Sukarno built
the National Monument (Monas), Hotel Indonesia, Semanggi clover
leaf and many more," Marco said in the same discussion.

Once, he added, a team from the United Nations proposed a plan
for housing for the very low income groups and space for street
vendors but it was turned down.

"The city administration thinks that street vendors ruin the
face of the city. It just doesn't make sense. They just don't
know how to organize them," Marco said.

"Worse still, there are no spaces left in the city for those
vendors," he added.

In terms of regulations, Marco noted, there was a regulation
requiring building owners to allocate 20 percent of their area
for street vendors to trade.

"But if they cannot fulfill the regulation, they can pay a
compensation fee to the city administration. This is actually the
source of the space problem," he said.

Many building owners would rather pay the compensation than
provide space for vendors, arguing that they were uninformed
about the regulation as the city administration never made it
known.

According to ISJ records, the city administration collected
some Rp 15 billion in compensation fees from building owners
during the period of 1993 to 2000, of which Rp 9 billion was used
to build seven places for vendors.

"This compensation clause has to be abolished. Everything can
be exchanged with money now. All regulations can be violated as
long as you pay a fine. While the consequences often can't be
solved with money," Marco asserted.

Providing special spaces for vendors would actually also
benefit building owners as about 70 percent of employees working
in office buildings on Jl. Sudirman, for example, buy their lunch
from street vendors.

Marco suggested that street vendors form an alliance with
consumers working in those office buildings so that they could
sell their goods inside the buildings or inside their compound,
and not on the sidewalk.

Meanwhile, Tubagus Haryo Karbyanto from the Jakarta branch of
the Legal Aid Institute (LBH Jakarta), said that the city
administration and street vendors should sit together and work
out a solution together.

"North Jakarta Mayor Soebagio can be an example. He's very
accommodative with vendors, and he likes to go around incognito
to know what is really going on in his mayoralty," Tubagus said.

As a result, he added, out of the 31 cases of rights'
violations toward street vendors in the first quarter of this
year, only 4 cases were found in North Jakarta. (hdn)