Outdoor advertising permit to be simplified

JAKARTA (JP): City administration will shorten the bureaucratic red tape on outdoor billboard applications by simplifying its procedures, an official said on Tuesday.

"Governor Sutiyoso has said current procedures are too long and complicated, so he has decided to simplify them," the city secretary assistant for development administration, Ongky Sukasah, told city councilors of Commission D on development affairs.

"It means that we will revoke the Outdoor Advertising Review Team (TPTPR), which has issued licenses all this time and hand over the authority to the City Revenue Agency (Dispenda)," Ongky, the team chairman, said.

He said the team consisted of city representatives from the revenue agency, the planning agency, the development control agency and the program office.

"There are also additional city members from the traffic and land transportation agency, the park agency and the public works agency," he said.

Ongky said under the new procedure, the technical city agencies -- the planning agency, development control agency, traffic and land transportation agency, park agency and public works agency -- would still be involved in issuing the licenses.

"The technical agencies will post their staff at Dispenda to give recommendations so that advertisement agencies will not have to go to separate agencies," he said, while acknowledging that the current procedure required a lot of time to get a license.

"That's why Pak Gubernur wished to stop the procedure," he added.

Head of City Revenue Agency Deden Supriadi said the agency targeted Rp 65.4 billion (US$9,342,900) from the advertisement tax in the 1999/2000 fiscal year. So far, the agency had received Rp 56 billion.

Deden said TPTPR generated some Rp 3.5 billion from the target because the team handles large billboards of more than 24 square meters in area.

"More than Rp 35 billion was generated from the medium-sized billboards of six to 24 square meters. The licenses were issued by our mayoralty-level offices," he said.

He added that billboards less than six square meters were processed at the agency's branches at the district level.

City Planning Agency head Ahmaddin Ahmad said his agency had arranged the outdoor billboards to be distributed in Senen and Tanah Abang areas in Central Jakarta and in Glodok and Mangga Dua areas in West Jakarta.

"We also provide space along toll roads and major roads. But it's prohibited to erect boards on Jl. Diponegoro and Jl. Teuku Umar in Central Jakarta," he said.

Ahmaddin said other prohibited locations were the National Monument (Monas) square and the Menteng residential area, the Semanggi cloverleaf and Kebayoran Baru residential area, the old Kota district and Tomang interchange in West Jakarta and Cawang interchange in East Jakarta.

"It's also prohibited to erect boards on embassy premises," he said.

He said the team often consulted the City Architecture Review Team (TPAK) for complex and difficult cases. (05)