Street vendors vs govt: Partnership is crucial

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Street vendors have become a unique phenomenon in this city.

Not to mention ubiquitous. Just about everywhere you turn, you can see them displaying their wares: at intersections, along the streets, outside schools and office buildings, inside public transportation, and even on the yards of mosques.

While their predecessors sold only mineral water and cigarettes, a new generation of vendors has branched out, hawking items as diverse as shoes, clothes, accessories, toys, toolkits, books and, occasionally, even weapons.

Street vendors have become a very sensitive topic for discussion at the moment.

Moreover, although some people welcome their presence, sympathetic with their daily struggle to eke out an existence, others see them as but a nuisance, blaming them for creating traffic jams around the city.

In many ways, the first opinion makes sense. It is hard to ignore the contribution of the vendors to the city administration.

The latest data from the Jakarta Social Institute (ISJ), in fact, reveals that the informal sector has provided jobs for at least one million people here.

Not a small number, especially in light of the ever-increasing unemployment rate following the economic crisis which hit the country in mid-1997.

According to Scholar Arief Budiman of Melbourne University in Australia, the heavy presence of street vendors in Indonesia supported the country's economy during the crisis, as well.

These jobs could reduce the crime rate in the city.

We should also respect the vendors considering that, despite the rampant evictions against them, they could still contribute billions of rupiah in revenue to the city administration.

ISJ recorded that, in 1999 alone, the vendors gave some Rp 27 billion (US$ 2.7 million) in fees.

Unfortunately, this money has so far failed to yield any positive effects from efforts that might allay negative impacts on the quality of life from the street vendors' presence.

Disorganized vendors, undoubtedly, have been a part in traffic snarls everywhere in the city.

Take a look at the vendors operating in Jl. Matraman Raya, near the Jatinegara market in East Jakarta; Jl. Ragunan Raya in South Jakarta; Jl. Hayam Wuruk in West Jakarta and Jl. Fachrudin, nearby Tanah Abang market in Central Jakarta.

These streets are known as welcome havens among vendors, while at the same time, notorious traps among motorists for traffic congestion. There, the vendors occupy up to two-thirds of the roads, blocking vehicles that pass through the streets.

The administration seems helpless to manage the problem. Several attempts have been made, without any positive results.

This year, the authorities launched intensive crackdowns, accusing the vendors of violating public order.

Some evictions resulted in violence, claiming many lives. Last month, for instance, a street vendor died during a crackdown in Jatinegara, East Jakarta.

The incidents were criticized by many politicians and their parties, including Minister of Manpower and Transmigration Jacob Nuwa Wea, who said the vendors have played important roles in buffeting the Indonesia's economy.

Regrettably, the administration's efforts to "combat" the vendors have, so far, proven useless. The vendors typically reopen their tents or makeshift stalls later on, only to continue selling soon after public order officers leave the sites, or as soon as they are freed from detention.

The administration had, in the past, offered them alternative places to conduct business, but the vendors rejected the offers, protesting that business at the new locations was too slow.

This awkward situation has now spawned a vicious cycle between authorities and the street vendors: After being raided and detained, the vendors are freed -- only to begin trading again; but not long before being raided and arrested all over again.

In November, Governor Sutiyoso unveiled his plan to legalize street vendors around the city. The administration proposed to register the vendors by giving a kind of membership cards.

However, many criticized the proposal, saying that it could lead to corruption. The critics warned that unscrupulous officials would be able to arbitrarily sell the cards to vendors or people, who do not deserve it, for their own profit.

The public obviously has questioned the prolonged conflict between the administration and the vendors.

As from the beginning, the administration has yet to establish an integrated policy to solve the problem. Rather, it gives merely inconsistent treatment to the vendors.

Sometimes, for the sake of maintaining public order, the administration takes stern actions against the vendors. At other times, it has never let the vendors run their business in the name of humanity.

City officials, however, seem content to raid the vendors. They have allocated Rp 12 billion this year for an operation specifically targeting public order offenders -- including street vendors.

Thus, it is no wonder many parties suspected the administration has never been too serious about resolving the problem -- because when the conflict is over corrupt officials, from the top to the bottom, can no longer pilfer the money.

The conflict reveals a failure by the administration to manage a basic task which reflects the administration officials' lack of competence in managing other important city affairs.

This incompetence, according to Tubagus Haryo Karbyanto from the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute, relates to the administration's inability to solve the problem from its root.

"All this time, the city administration views the problem from the peak of Monas (National Monument)," he asserted, referring to the authorities' habit of coping with the problems here.

Clearing the roads of street, vendors will not solve the problem because it could only reach the surface of the dilemma, instead of the root cause.

The administration, therefore, must change its perspective of the vendors, if it really wants to address the cause of the problem: poverty.

Considering that the country has not yet succeeded in coping with its grinding poverty, Arief once said, the administration has no other choice but to make peace with it.

"The administration should consider the vendors as an integral part of the city." said Azas Tigor Nainggolan, the leader of the Jakarta Residents Forum.

He asked the administration to transfer the funds, previously allocated for raids, to be used to instead manage the vendors. "Don't see them as enemy, regard them as partners, as they are willing to be organized if it managed to take them seriously."

The administration could do better in providing space for the vendors, said architect Marco Kusumawijaya; some vacant public space, he added, could be utilized for that purpose.

Though the problem seems complex, it could still be resolved.

A partnership between the administration and the vendors is definitely a step in the right direction, since both parties must reveal a sense of goodwill towards each other.

Otherwise it will continue, unabated, in the future.