PPD may make profit with express fleet
JAKARTA (JP): The state-owned bus company, Perusahaan Pengangkutan Djakarta (PPD), would make money and avoid financial losses only if it scraps aging buses and operates more express air-conditioned ones, an expert said yesterday.
Herdjan Kenasin, the president of the Jakarta-based Trisakti Transport Management College, told The Jakarta Post that the express fleet is easier to control than a regular one, which forces bus crews to rent and cram public buses with as many passengers as they can.
It is common practice here to execute the so-called `setoran' payment in which a vehicle owner leases his car to a driver who in turn has to pay a certain amount of money per day.
Herdjan underlined the importance of employing professional managers to run the company to help improve both its financial performance and public services, rather than just relying on mediocre government officials.
"But we just cannot blame former executives of PPD for its rundown performance," he said, adding quickly that PPD slowly was drowning due to acute mismanagement following the company's acquisition of financially-troubled private-run companies in the 1970s.
He said the merger had burdened PPD with enormous debts as well as a fleet of aging buses along with their crews.
Minister of Transportation Haryanto Dhanutirto said on Tuesday that PPD is the only financially-troubled state-owned enterprise of 17 companies under his supervision.
As of this year, Haryanto said, the PPD had suffered Rp 14 billion (US$6.7 million) in financial losses, far above the accepted level of Rp 1.9 billion.
"If we don't stop it, it will possibly reach between Rp 16 billion and Rp 18 billion at the end of this year," the minister said in Bandung, West Java on Tuesday.
As if referring to the poor management, Haryanto reshuffled the top management of the PPD earlier this month, inducting Brig. Gen. (ret) Soedarko as its new president replacing Col. Yahya Subandi.
Another serviceman, Col. Djatisantoso, as well as Nur Usman, Prijo Soebiandono and Anwar Delmy, were inducted as PPD managers, respectively, in charge of operations, finance, technique and general affairs.
The new management has not been available for comment over the past two days.
Herdjan, himself a former senior official of the ministry, declined to comment about the outgoing as well as the new line- up.
Idle
He just said that PPD failed to maintain all its burdens over the last two decades due to a lack of professionalism and poor law enforcement. "It's better for the new team to concentrate on operating more express air-conditioned buses," he reiterated.
In a related development, city councilor Muhammad Rodja questioned the management of PPD when confronted with the fact that one third of its 1,400-bus fleet are now idle.
Official data say that PPD's total fleet consists of 1,400 buses but sources close to the PPD estimate that PPD operates only around 900.
"The standard for the number of vehicles being repaired is between 10 and 15 percent of the total fleet. PPD's maintenance, which reaches over 30 percent, is too high," Rodja said yesterday, adding that Jakarta still needs thousands more public buses.
Without feeling surprised, Herdjan simply said the number is a good reflection of PPD's sickness, adding that to repair all 300 requires a huge amount of money.
Yahya Subandi, the former president of PPD, said that the current assets of PPD reach to more than Rp 100 billion with 15 bus stations throughout the Greater Jakarta area.
Yahya was starting to privatize parts of the company's operation before he was replaced by Soedarko. (09)