Thu, 21 Sep 1995

Sanitation office looks into missing funds

JAKARTA (JP): A city councilor has urged the municipal sanitation office to review its system of collecting fees from residents for garbage removal services.

Helmy A.R. Syihab, head of the council's Commission C, which oversees financial affairs, said yesterday that at present a lot of funds are going missing. While a portion of the money collected should go to neighborhood and community unit chiefs as commission, this is not being handed over, he said.

He added that many neighborhood and community unit chiefs have yet to receive their commission for last year, despite the claims of sanitation office personnel that the payments have been made.

"The state of affairs shows that the management is not effective, since it is possible that the funds are being embezzled by certain officers," Helmy said.

To reduce the scope for corruption, Helmy urged the sanitation office to make the commission payments through banks. Community and neighborhood chiefs would simply open bank accounts into which the commission could be deposited, he suggested.

The sanitation office collected Rp 9.94 billion (US$4.51 million) in garbage removal fees in the 1994/1995 fiscal year. Ten percent of the total fees collected had been earmarked as commission for the neighborhood and community units.

According to gubernatorial decree No. 570/1990, 3 percent of the funds collected are to go to subdistrict heads, while 7 percent should be paid to community neighborhood heads.

The purpose of the decree is to encourage diligence on the part of community and neighborhood heads in collecting the monthly fees from residents.

Helmy expressed concern that ineffective management would prevent the sanitation office from reaching this year's fee collection target of Rp 10 billion.

He added that, in any case, Rp 10 billion target is too low.

According to provincial decree No. 5/1988, owners of a building or house on a main street are obliged to pay monthly sanitation fees of Rp 10,000 each, he said. Owners of houses off main streets in areas designated as first class must pay Rp 7,500, while those living in areas designated as second class must pay Rp 3,000.

"If each of the owners of the 1.5 million houses/buildings in the city paid an average of Rp 3,000 per month, for example, there would be Rp 54 billion (collected) each year," he said. (yns)