Sutiyoso urged to stop raid on vendors
Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
A string of aggressive raids on street vendors across the capital, a micro business that serves the needs of Jakarta's middle and low-income groups, has drawn criticism from the City Council's Commission B on the economy.
"We urge Governor Sutiyoso and the mayors to stop the raids ... until the administration finds a way out or a place to relocate the street vendors," councillor Nuraini Syaifullah said on Tuesday during a general session to analyze the use of the city budget 2004.
The latest clash during an eviction of street vendors took place earlier this month between public order officers and the students of the Indonesia Christian University (UKI) in Cawang, East Jakarta, who backed the vendors.
Another clash in Tanah Abang, Central Jakarta, last week, also injured several officers and vendors.
"Such raids, which are not accompanied by other alternatives for the affected street vendors, are simply partial and not comprehensive," Nuraini lamented.
The call was made while members of the Jakarta chapter of the Indonesian Street Vendors Association (APKLI) was holding a three-day mass rally in protest over the evictions.
"We would not mind if the administration wanted to manage us seriously. Our association could guarantee that street vendors could contribute Rp 1.5 billion to the city's coffers every day," association chairman Muhamad Muhdi said on Tuesday.
The association estimates that there are more than 300,000 street vendors here in the capital, higher that the Jakarta Bureau of Statistic's report of 141,000 vendors, who need a special, city-backed management body.
But Jakarta Cooperatives, Small and Medium-scale Enterprises Agency head Sukri Bey said that his agency was seeking stronger authority to manage street vendors, so it could impose zone-based fees on street vendors starting September.
The fees will range between Rp 3,000 and Rp 10,000 per day per stall measuring a maximum of two meters by two meters. Higher fees will be imposed on stalls more spacious than the standard stall located at strategic locations.
In a related development, both the administration and council have agreed to revise Bylaw No. 2/2002 on markets regulating that every mall or shopping center must provide between 10 percent and 20 percent of their premises for small-scale vendors.
The implementation of the bylaw has been strongly opposed by the managements of the malls and shopping centers, which claim that the ruling would scare investors away and infringed on their right to manage their own properties. They challenged the bylaw last year in the administrative court, which ruled in favor of the businesspeople and ordered the administration to revoke it.