Sutiyoso gives personal guarantee to Tanah Abang traders

Sutiyoso gives personal guarantee to Tanah Abang traders

Damar Harsanto
The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

Governor Sutiyoso gave on Monday his personal guarantee that the
3,500 traders at the Central Jakarta Tanah Abang market would get
affordable space in the new, renovated market buildings.

The city is planning to completely rebuild the market after
the original buildings were declared structurally unsafe.

"The most important thing is that whatever the policy we make,
the traders will obtain space in the new market with decent
rental fees. That's my (personal) guarantee to them," Sutiyoso
said at after an international conference on seaports at the
Borobudur Hotel in Central Jakarta.

Sutiyoso, however, did not spell out how he would guarantee
this. Decent rental fees he said "should not be too expensive
for the traders to afford."

Rental fees for the newly renovated Block A of the market
ranged between Rp 20 million and Rp 225 million a square meter
for a 20-year period, depending on how strategic the locations of
the kiosks were.

Spokesman of the city-owned market operator Nurman Adhi
confirmed that facilities in the planned Blocks B, C, D and E
would likely be of the same quality as those in Block A.

"However, we have yet to decide on the rental fees," Nurman
told The Jakarta Post.

The administration has gone ahead and torn down the four
market blocks after a recommendation made by a Bandung Institute
of Technology civil engineering team, which said that the
structure of the market's four blocks was unsafe and in dire need
of reinforcement or total renovation.

Many traders, however, have opposed the plan, saying they
doubted the veracity of the team's recommendations and could not
afford the price of the new trading space.

Court action by traders has slowed down the work by market
operator Pasar Jaya and PT Sari Kebon Jeruk Permai, which have
been appointed by the city to develop the controversial project.

The Central Jakarta Court had earlier issued an asset
preservation order freezing work on the market but later annulled
the order after Sutiyoso objected to the ruling.

The city has claimed that most of the traders whose kiosks are
affected by the project had reserved space in the new market and
supported the renovations.