PPD to renovate 1,200 aged buses
JAKARTA (JP): The state-owned bus company PPD will refurbish 1,200 buses next year in cooperation with selected private companies to help improve services to the public.
Minister of Transportation Haryanto Dhanutirto said in a hearing with Commission V of the House of Representative on Tuesday that PPD currently has about 1,600 damaged buses.
"The company does not have any funds to renovate the buses so we are offering a joint operation scheme to private companies," he said.
He said that PPD signed a cooperation agreement with PT Senawangi Wisamarta Utama (SWU), a subsidiary of a widely diversified Humpuss group, in July last year for reconditioning 43 double-decker buses at the SWU's workshop in Bekasi. Some of the buses have been fixed and are back on the road.
Haryanto said that SWU furbished each bus with new seats and new engines at an additional cost of Rp 50 million (about US$22,720).
The minister reiterated that PPD will never be sold to private companies, but cooperation with private sectors is inevitable in order to improve the company's performance.
He made the remarks in response to a call from legislator Mohammad Buang of the PPP faction for the sale of PPD to private companies as the bus company has always suffered losses.
Buang said that PPD is projected to suffer a total loss of Rp 18 billion this year, 10 times that estimated by the Ministry of Transportation.
"It is useless to keep PPD, why not just sell the company to a private firm?" he said.
Haryanto, however, said that PPD was just mismanaged and after the management was reshuffled last month its losses decreased.
"By the end of this year, PPD's loss can hopefully be estimated at between Rp 15 billion and Rp 15.9 billion," he said.
Mass transport
Haryanto also told the commission which deals with telecommunications, public works and transportation that his office is studying the possibility of mass rapid transport in the Jakarta greater area (Jabotabek).
He said that a team led by Secretary General of the Ministry of Transportation Muchtarudin Siregar which comprises officials from the Ministry, Jakarta administration, the Ministry of Public Works, the National Development Planning Agency, and the Agency for Assessment and Application of Technology will complete the concepts of such a project by the end of this year.
"We actually have two choices, underground and elevated concepts," he said.
The minister said that several consortia from France, Canada, Japan, the United States, Germany and Australia have proposed to carry out the construction of underground projects.
The government recently said that a mass rapid transport project in the Jakarta greater area is estimated to cost about Rp 7 trillion. (icn)