Sutiyoso OKs change in BP Parkir status
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)