Sutiyoso OKs change in BP Parkir status

JAKARTA (JP): Governor Sutiyoso agreed over the weekend to change the status of the city's parking management agency, BP Parkir, to a city-owned company to improve its performance.

Deputy Governor for Economic and Financial Affairs, Harun Al Rasyid, quoted the governor as saying that the change in status from an agency into a company would make the management more flexible in boosting its income.

"A city-owned company can support itself from its income and it can establish partnerships with other companies to expand," Harun quoted Sutiyoso as saying.

Harun made the remarks amid speculation that the administration may privatize parking administration to maximize its income from the sector.

The parking agency has been sneered at as inefficient. Critics attribute the low income to the notorious "leakages" by corrupt officials at all levels.

Zumrotin K. Soesilo, executive director of the Indonesian Consumers Foundation, said yesterday that the leakages were "very large".

She reckoned that if the 1,800 cars in Jakarta spent an average of Rp 300 on parking fees every day, the city could obtain about Rp 16.2 billion (US$2 million) in a single day.

Rp 300 is the official parking fee for a car as set by the city administration.

In practice, Zumrotin said, parking attendants charge up to Rp 1,000 for the first hour and Rp 500 for each further hour.

"If the agency was not full of leaks, parking revenue would be a lot larger that it is now," she told The Jakarta Post.

Zumrotin said the public did not care about the status of the agency managing parking affairs. The issue, she pointed out, was how to enforce the government's parking regulations.

In the 1997/1998 fiscal year that ended on March 31, the city administration collected only Rp 14 billion of its targeted Rp 25 billion.

Harun denied reports that the administration was about to privatize parking in the capital.

"We (the administration) will manage it by ourselves because we have the necessary means and manpower," he said.

Rumors about the possible privatization of the parking administration was sparked by officials' disclosure that 20 private companies had, in the last nine years, proposed to the administration that they manage the parking.

The proposals include developing a computerized ticketing system to prevent manipulation and providing reasonable wages for parking attendants to prevent them from engaging in corruption or other dishonest acts.

The agency currently employs about 2,500 parking attendants throughout the city.

Sumaryono, the parking agency's chief, said that once the agency was converted into a government-run company, it would be free to cooperate with private firms.

"Then the city administration and the private business partners can share profits," he said.

A member of City Council Commission D for development affairs, Lukman Mokoginta, said he supported the plan to change the parking agency's status.

"If the parking agency is changed (into a city-owned company), it would have the authority to hire experts and woo investors to join the management," he said.

Lukman reckoned that if the agency was maintained, it would become almost completely ineffective because it would be affected by a 1997 law which, when it comes into effect on May 23, cuts the number of local taxes from 42 to nine and levies from 192 to 30.

He said that the law prohibited the administration from collecting levies from a business in which the administration did not have a share. He added levies from off-street parking -- most of which is managed by private companies -- were much bigger than those the government collects from on-street parking.

At present the administration gets 25 percent of the parking fees in areas managed by private companies. It will automatically lose this money when the new law comes into effect. (ind)