Sutiyoso offers his guarantee to 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.