Thousands of kiosks in markets unoccupied

Thousands of kiosks in markets unoccupied

JAKARTA (JP): Thousands of kiosks in the 60 city-owned markets
and 103 traditional markets have been deserted by traders, with
some being sealed by the market authority.

Chief of the city-owned Jambul Cililitan Market, Betal
Sihotang, said the condition of the market is far from what he
had expected because approximately 60 of its 472 kiosks are being
sealed by the market authority.

Usually, the market authority seals a kiosk after the tenant
fails to pay the rent.

Betal said the market is now visited by fewer people because
its location is not in a strategic position and the goods being
sold there are also very limited.

Betal said he is now trying to improve the market's condition
by making it cleaner and safer.

"We are cooperating with security officers in order to
reduce crimes in the market," he said.

He said the market is also cooperating with its traders to
change the market's roofs from asbestos to plastic fibers in
order to make the market brighter.

The Jambul Cililitan market in East Jakarta is located on a
6,900 meter square plot of land.

Suara Pembaruan daily reported on Saturday that the same
condition has also occurred at two other markets, city-owned Rawa
Kerbau market, in East Jakarta, and block VI of the city-owned
Senen Market in Central Jakarta.

The daily said that from 2,194 kiosks at the Senen market,
approximately 285 of them are not used and 53 sealed.

According to some of the traders who bought spaces in the
market, about 70 percent of the kiosk owners are speculators, who
sell their kiosks to other people at higher prices after the
market is patronized by many people.

Senen market's executive, Robert Siahaan said that the
management of the market told kiosk owners, shortly after they
bought them, to open their kiosks, but this was ignored by the
traders.

Some of the kiosk owners said that they postponed opening
their kiosks because the security arrangements of Block VI are
very poor and they expected the market management to improve the
block's security first.

"The situation in that block is not safe because there are
many street hoodlums extorting money from kiosk owners," said
Gendro S. a market official who supported the traders' action.

The same conditions occurred at the Rawa Kerbau market, which
now has 518 kiosks, because 156 kiosks have been abandoned, and
40 kiosks are sealed.

But the same problem is not found at the Cempaka Putih market,
which now has 1,000 kiosks, because the number of deserted kiosks
is less than one hundred.

Cempaka Putih market is the first city-owned market in Jakarta
and was built by the city administration in 1977.(mas)