Not all residents have ID card

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)