Personnel shortage leaves shanties in place

Personnel shortage leaves shanties in place

JAKARTA (JP): The city administration just doesn't have enough
people to keep shantytowns from springing up, Toha Reno, the head
of the city's public order office says.

This personnel shortage is what causes the inconsistency in
the demolition of unauthorized structures, Toha, told The Jakarta
Post in an interview yesterday.

Toha said his office has too small a number of staff to detect
the building of shanties at an early stage. Personnel constraints
also make it impossible to clear away the makeshift structures
already erected by squatters along riverbanks.

The authorities have pulled down at least 3,500 shanties along
river banks this year.

Last month dozens of families became homeless when officials
demolished the unauthorized structures on the banks of the
Ciliwung river in Pejambon and along Jl. Surabaya in Central
Jakarta. Last week shantytown residents clashed with officials
sent in to tear down their homes in Kedoya Utara, West Jakarta.
Hundreds of shanties were destroyed in Kedoya Utara and
Kembangan, also in West Jakarta, during that operation.

In the wake of that demolition, critics said force could have
been avoided had the administration taken action immediately
after the first shanty was built, instead of waiting until a
shantytown had formed.

Governor Surjadi Soedirdja has frequently instructed the
capital's mayors to take firm action whenever illegal structures
appear on state property, including along riverbanks.

The supervision at districts and subdistrict levels remains
weak, however.

People have voiced the suspicion that lower level officials
allow the formation of slums in order to extort money from
squatters, whom they threaten with eviction.

The Pejambon squatters claimed they had paid between Rp 10,000
(US$4.4) and Rp 100,000 to mayoralty officials for protection
before the demolition.

Only 669

"We do not have an adequate number of personnel. Controlling
riverbanks is not the only task we are responsible for," Toha
said.

He said his office has 669 staffers. "Ideally, the office
needs 1,440 people, meaning 33 officials for one district." The
city has 43 districts.

He said the estimation of how many staffers are required is
based on the population, the complexity of problems and the area
covered by a given section of the capital.

"We have too many jobs to do and a very limited number of
staff to do them," he complained.

The city administration now has 76,000 employees and cannot
hire any more due to the central government's policy to limit the
number of civil servants.

The Ministry of Home Affairs has allowed the municipal
administration to accept 1,994 applicants this year. Two hundred
new workers are to be hired under permanent employee status,
while the remaining 1,794 will be employed on a contract basis.

Manpower data indicates that 35 percent of all of the job
vacancies in Jakarta this year remain unfilled. From April to
September this year, only 5,147 of 34,026 job seekers found
employment. (yns)