Organda regrets its haste in hiking taxi fare

JAKARTA (JP): The chairman of the Organization of Land Transportation Owners (Organda), Aip Sjarifuddin, apologized on Thursday for the organization's haste in increasing taxi fares 50 percent.

He promised that in the future the organization would coordinate with the City Council before implementing such policies.

Speaking to journalists, Aip said he realized Organda was wrong to implement the fare hike without first coordinating with the City Council or providing sufficient advanced notice to the public.

"We admit the recent fare increase was Organda's fault," he said.

He said the organization would meet with the City Council soon to determine more acceptable taxi fares, and also would notify the public and taxi operators of any fare increases.

"We will not revise our proposal on the fare hike, but we will ask the City Council to come up with a more reasonable calculation of the hike in the upcoming meeting," Aip said.

After months of study, Governor Sutiyoso issued Gubernatorial Decree No. 2503/2000 on Aug. 22, which allowed taxi operators to raise the flagfall from Rp 2,000 (about 25 US cents) to Rp 3,000, and increase the charges from Rp 900 per kilometer to Rp 1,300 per kilometer. The waiting fee also was increased from Rp 10,000 to Rp 13,000 per hour.

After the governor issued the decree, Organda issued a regulation on the fare hike on Aug. 24, which stated the new fares would come into effect on Sept. 1, 2000.

This step by Organda appeared to conform with a 1998 decree issued by the then minister of transportation, which stipulates a gubernatorial decree is the only requirement needed for issuing a regulation on new taxi fares.

But opposition from the public and pressure from city councillors forced the city administration to suspend the implementation of the new fares.

Following the postponement on Tuesday, officials of the City Land Transportation Agency (DLLAJ) were instructed to crack down on taxis still charging passengers the new fares.

The chairman of DLLAJ, Buyung Atang, said his staff would not halt their crackdown on taxi drivers who continued charging passengers the increased fares. As of Wednesday, around 400 taxi drivers had been fined, most from the Blue Bird group.

A driver of a Silver Bird taxi, which is part of the Blue Bird group, said all of the tickets were being settled by the company because the drivers refused to pay the fines.

"We agreed to give the tickets to the company; we leave it up to them (management) to take care of the matter. But we do not know what the company will do about this," the driver, who asked not to be named, said on Thursday.

The management of the Blue Bird Group declined to discuss the matter. (dja)