Tourism police get Rp 1.5b this year

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The city administration has allocated Rp 1.5 billion to the tourist police, including Rp 500 million for English language training.

The allocation of the money, taken from the 2003 city budget, was revealed during a hearing between the City Council's Commission B for economic affairs and the city tourist agency here last week.

Head of the agency Aurora Tambunan said the Rp 1.5 billion was part of a budget of Rp 40 billion allocated for the city tourist agency.

The total city budget is Rp 11 trillion this year.

She said Rp 500 million of the money allocated to the tourist police would be used for English language training, another Rp 300 million would be spend on increasing the number of personnel from 66 to some 250, while Rp 350 million would be used to purchase communications equipment and uniforms.

The tourist police chief, Comr. Edhy Moestofa, claimed that his unit was unable to perform its job well due to a lack of personnel.

The tourist police have several important functions including providing adequate protection to tourists, patrolling tourism resorts, protecting very VIPs, as well as guarding hotels, restaurants and other places frequently visited by tourists.

He also revealed that out of 10 cars assigned to the tourist police, only four were still roadworthy, while out of the unit's 18 motorcycles, none were roadworthy.

Commission B chairman Syarif Zulkarnaen Ginting said that his commission would give full support to any efforts to improve facilities and activities aimed at boosting the tourist industry in the city.

He said the contribution of the tourism sector was some Rp 700 billion last year, which was small compared to the last year's total city budget of around Rp 9 trillion.

"We hope that in the future, tourism will provide a more significant contribution to the city budget as unlike other regions, Jakarta is a service city that gets no revenue from natural resources," Syarif said.