Parking fee for small vehicles

JAKARTA (JP): City Council Commission C for city revenues said yesterday that the owners of small public transport vehicles should pay a fee to the municipality for using its parking lots.

The commission chairman, Helmy AR Syihab, said that the owners have benefited from the lots and should thus pay to maintain them.

Small public transport vehicles include the city's 14,000 three-wheeled bajaj and more than 1,000 bemo, which are being phased out. Once out of circulation, the municipality will collect fees from the minivans expected to replace the bemo.

"An estimated Rp 60 million (US$25.3 million) a year could be extracted from the parking lots," he said after a meeting with officials of the city's Land Transport Terminal Body.

However, a councilor from the commission for development affairs questioned the list of almost 70 sites across five mayoralties proposed for parking lots.

The sites are outlined and authorized by a 1996 gubernatorial decree.

"Many of the sites are not parking lots. The vehicles are just parked on the road," Saud Rachman said. "If fees are collected this would make their parking legal."

Saud urged the city to review the decree, which aims to prevent parking outside of authorized areas.

Helmy said the suggestion to collect fees from special parking lots is expected to boost revenues for the next fiscal year.

Last fiscal year the Terminal Body managed to collect almost 100 percent, or Rp 4.48 billion of its target of Rp 4.57 billion. The target for the 1996/1997 fiscal year is Rp 6.8 billion, he said. Terminal fees are collected from passengers, kiosk traders and drivers.

In response to whether the commission found indications that next year's target may be too low, Helmy said the meeting with Terminal Body officials "did no go into details" regarding the number of passengers, kiosks and vehicles.

The Pulogadung bus station, which is to be replaced by a larger terminal, accommodates 1,000 city buses serving 63 routes and 750 inter-city buses plying 39 routes with a combined total of 28,000 passengers a day.

The commission also said that the Body would be more efficient if it were separated from the Land Transport and Traffic Control Agency.

"The Terminal Body should answer directly to the governor, who could control it better," he said.

Currently the chief of the agency, JP Sepang, also heads the Terminal Body. (anr)