Official denies plan to build new costly crisis center

JAKARTA (JP): City administration spokesman Muhayat denied here on Saturday that the administration would develop a new crisis center or improve its current crisis control center (Pusdalsis), which would cost billions of rupiah.

"We never had such a plan. Some people have offered equipment for the center, but we have no plan to buy it," Muhayat told The Jakarta Post.

Muhayat was commenting on the city councillors' statement recently that they would reject the city administration's plan to buy electronic equipment for the crisis center.

"It's better to have spent hundreds of millions of rupiah on foreign trips than to build a crisis center which would cost billions of rupiah," the City Council chairman Edy Waluyo told reporters.

But Muhayat noted that the city did not need any new equipment for its Pusdalsis. "We think that our equipment is sufficient. We have no plan to buy the electronic equipment which reportedly costs billions of rupiah," Muhayat said, adding that the city administration also had no plan to build a new crisis center.

He revealed its current crisis control center (Pusdalsis) on the 22nd floor of the city administration building on Jl. Merdeka Selatan, Central Jakarta, was only used for occasional events, such as a special session of the People's Consultative Assembly.

He said the center's television monitors, which were built two years ago, could be used to monitor rallies or demonstrations on the city's main streets or to anticipate potential riots.

The City Council's Commission A, dealing with legal and administrative affairs, made the statement recently after they conducted what they claimed was a comparative study in Tokyo and Beijing.

During the study, some 18 councillors of the commission visited Tokyo's crisis center and its fire headquarters to study disaster management.

The councillors, which were charged US$2,115 each for air fares and five-star hotel accommodation, spent most of their time visiting tourist sites in the two cities.

The 2001 City Budget has allocated Rp 12 billion (US$1.3 million) for the councillors' domestic and foreign trips. More than half of the fund has been spent.

They admitted that their trip's results could not be applied in Jakarta, but claimed that they still needed such comparative studies to increase their knowledge.

Separately, the chairman of the urban division of the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute Tubagus Karbyanto questioned why the Commission A councillors should study disaster management.

"They are supposed to study legal aspects or administrative affairs. Of course, the trip was useless for them, as well as for the city as they've admitted," Tubagus told the Post. (jun)