One-stop service center disappoints the public

Rendi A. Witular, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The idea behind the establishment of a one-stop document service center was to provide better and faster service for Jakartans processing official documents.

But the early results of the pilot project at the North Jakarta mayoralty office on Jl. Yos Sudarso, which began on March 6, have so far been less than satisfying.

Despite the ambitious goal of winning an ISO 9001 certificate of quality, North Jakarta Mayor Soebagio admitted the center was teeming with middlemen.

One Jakartan, the 40-year-old Asmaradi, a resident of Semper, was vocal about his dissatisfaction with the center after having to wait for more than five hours to check on the authenticity of his land certificate.

"What's the difference (from the old system)? I was expecting quicker and better service from the officials at the center. I could have gone to the mayoralty land agency office for the same service," complained the father of two, who came to the document center at the recommendation of staff at the land agency office.

Two midwives who came to the center to extend their operational permit were similarly upset with the level of service they received.

"We usually process the permit at the mayoralty health agency office in 30 minutes. We were recommended by the agency to come here. They said we would get better service.

"But we prefer processing the permit at the agency as we had to wait for more than two hours here," said the midwives.

There are 11 counters at the center, dealing with documents related to mayoralty planning; construction; industry and trade; population and civil records; burial; mayoralty treasury; mayoralty remuneration agent; property taxes; health services; and labor and transmigration.

Discussing the problem of middlemen at the center, Mayor Soebagio could only say: "We will eliminate the middlemen by improving the services of the center. With good service and comfort, we believe the public will not need the middlemen to process their documents."

The mayoralty has spent Rp 45 million (US$4,500) training the counter staff and providing them with uniforms.

The center was officially opened by Governor Sutiyoso on Tuesday. In remarks at the opening, the governor said he hoped other mayoralties would follow the lead of North Jakarta and set up similar centers.