Operation against illegal billboards starts again today
JAKARTA (JP): The municipal administration will launch, starting today until Oct. 31, an operation to dismantle billboards which do not have permits, or whose permits have expired, and billboards which still use a foreign language.
"The operation is a continuation of a similar operation we launched earlier," deputy head of the City Revenue Office, Syuaib Nuhung, said on Saturday.
Nuhung, in a statement made available to The Jakarta Post, stated that the current operation is aimed at upholding the existing regulation in line with Decree No. 10/1989, regarding billboard taxation, and Decree No. 1/1990, concerning the proper use of the Indonesia language on billboards and name plates.
The operation is also aimed at increasing the city's revenues from billboard taxes, he said, adding that city administration has set a target of Rp 47.2 billion (US$21.45 million) from this tax collection in the current 1995/1996 fiscal year.
"From that target, about Rp 25.94 million, or 55 percent of the projection, has been collected, as of Aug. 31," he said, expressing confidence that the target will be met by the end of the fiscal year.
Discipline
In line with a nationwide campaign to encourage people to use Indonesian correctly, and to observe basic elements of discipline, city administration launched a series of similar operations from June to August.
At its first stage, the operation was conducted in only 31 areas, ranging from Pondok Labu in South Jakarta, to Kota in West Jakarta, from Jl. Gatot Subroto in Central Jakarta, to Cawang in East Jakarta.
In those operations 68 billboards, using a foreign language, along the roads linking Blok M and Pasar Ikan were covered with white cloths and their owners given time to dismantle the billboards themselves, he said.
"Eight of the billboard owners expressed readiness to voluntarily change the use of the foreign language with Indonesian," he said.
The law and order officers found, in the previous operations, 428 billboards in other areas. "As many as 97 billboards were covered with white cloth, while the owners of the other 331 agreed to change them voluntarily," he said.
Nuhung reiterated that city administration will not hesitate to tear down billboards, whose foreign language has not been changed to Indonesian.
In a related development, an official of the City Public Order Office, Toha M. Reno, said that in August his office dismantled about 2,591 expired billboards and illegal street banners and another 2,552 in July. (yns)