Small vendors want a place inside market building

Small vendors want a place inside market building

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

"I have sold fruit here for almost 15 years already. We are
allowed to do business here because we pay the officials," said
Dudung, 51, who opened his small stand on the sidewalk of Jl.
Palmerah Utara, while pointing at the city-run Palmerah market
building behind him.

Dudung is among the dozens of small scale vendors who sell
their merchandises on the street, taking up a great portion of
the road and causing traffic congestion in the area not only
during peak hours.

"I cannot afford to rent a place inside the building because
it would cost me billions of rupiah," Dudung said.

"Here I'm only required to pay Rp 1,000 (11 US cents) in the
morning, another Rp 2,000 in the afternoon and Rp 1,000 in the
evening to the public order officers and sanitation agency
officers," he added.

A similar situation can be seen at Pasar Minggu market in
South Jakarta where small vendors, mostly selling fruit and
vegetables, take up a portion of the left side of Jl. Ragunan
which connects Depok and Pancoran areas.

"We play cat and mouse games with public order officers all
the time. We have an agreement with the officers that if their
boss shows up to supervise an eviction, we will disappear for
three or four days. After that, we come back, pay the officers,
and its business as usual," said Budi, 35, who sells fruit on the
sidewalk, adding he paid a total of Rp 7,000 each day.

"But it is better than being told to sell in the place
provided by the market management at the back of the market
building as nobody even bothers to go there," he added.

The head of city market operator PD Pasar Jaya, Prabowo,
admitted that his office imposed fees ranging between Rp 5,000
and Rp 7,000 on small scale vendors who do business inside the
market compound but not in the building.

"We set high fees because we want those vendors who don't want
to rent space inside the market building to move. As a result,
some of them have begun to look for other places," Prabowo told
The Jakarta Post through phone on Monday.

But the vendors apparently have not moved far away from the
market, as more and more vendors are seen around the traditional
markets managed by PD Pasar Jaya.

Activist Wardah Hafidz of the Urban Poor Consortium (UPC)
deplored the city market operator's policy which she said did not
side with the small scale vendors and would only worsen traffic
and security problems.

"The city administration should give the vendors strategic
spaces which can easily be reached by buyers inside the market
building, and not give them kiosks on the upper stories of the
building just because the strategic sites had all been taken by
big capital traders who are willing to pay more," she told the
Post.

She said that most of these small scale vendors were the
original inhabitants of the traditional markets.

"These vendors were displaced by the big traders after the
city administration built modern market buildings there.
Therefore, their interests should be prioritized," she said.