Sanitation office looks into missing funds

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)