Street vendors vs govt: Partnership is crucial

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.