Traders urge city govt to manage Aldiron plaza

JAKARTA (JP): Traders in Aldiron plaza in the Blok M shopping complex asked yesterday the city administration to manage the building because the current management failed to accommodate their needs.

The city must take over management of the building, which is on municipality land, because manager PT Aldiron Hero had let the building become run down, said the plaza's traders' association spokesman Azwar Wahid.

PT Aldiron's management contract for the building expires in 2001.

The representatives were received by city officials.

Meanwhile, some 50 small businesses from the plaza protested at city hall about the electricity being cut off last Monday.

"This is the third time our electricity been cut off in the past two years because our building's manager did not pay the electricity bill," he said.

Although the traders have paid their Rp 12,000 per square meter monthly maintenance fee up to last October, they found PT Aldiron Hero still owed the electricity company Rp 120 million (US$50,654) from three months unpaid electrical bills, Azwar said.

The cut off cost most small traders more than 70 percent of their daily income.

Azwar who owns a jewelry store on the first floor said he lost millions of rupiah a day when the power was off.

A small printing company owner, Cytimba, said he lost between Rp 1 million and Rp 2 million a day.

Tailors who occupy the second floor said they had to pay each apprentice Rp 20,000 a day even when there was no income.

PT Aldiron Hero's general manager, Ariyanto, said that since a fire gutted the building's third and fourth floors in May 1994, the company had lost money on the building.

Ariyanto said many shop owners did not pay their monthly dues and some left after not paying for a year.

"The amount of money we get from managing the building did not pay the maintenance costs," he said, adding that the fire made it hard to renovate the third and fourth floors.

Only 168 traders remain of the 400 who occupied the building when it opened in 1979.

The company planned to raise the monthly dues to Rp 15,000 per square meter to fund renovations but traders refused this, Ariyanto said.

Traders said they would not mind paying extra if the company improved facilities. The traders said services which needed improvement included the cleaning, security and air-conditioning.

Azwar said more toilets needed to be built because the building had only one toilet.

"If the management cannot not provide us with all the things that he promised to do, we strongly urge the city to take over the building now," he said. (02)