Not all residents have ID card

JAKARTA (JP): Only half of the official figure of Jakarta's population of some 10 million people have the city's compulsory identification card, a senior official said.

The National Family Planning Board's city office head of program development, Sumiyati, said on Friday that her office had counted Jakarta's population at only 1,379,818 families, or about 5.5 million people.

The board's figure "did not include people without identification cards living in remote, slum areas of the city."

According to Sumiyati, the decision to exclude certain people in the data gathering was based on a verbal instruction by former governor Surjadi Soedirdja to her office.

"Surjadi ordered us not to include the people living in the slums, such as those along riversides or railway tracks," Sumiyati said.

"He had also told us that there was no reason to blow up Jakarta's population figure. We still apply that instruction when we tally Jakarta's population. We haven't been given any changes to the instruction from the current governor," she explained.

The latest data from the city's Ministry of Manpower office shows that Jakarta is home to a population of 9.7 million. (ylt)