Transport allowance

Transport allowance

From Suara Karya

It is becoming increasingly difficult for civil servants to find a place to live near their Jakarta offices. This is because the city is continuously and rapidly developing. Every morning you see flocks of civil servants on the outskirts of Jakarta being herded onto city buses.

Civil servants can't dream of buying a piece of land or a home in the city area because it is way beyond their reach. Fortunately, developers are well aware of the situation and have built housing complexes 30 kilometers outside of Jakarta. The employees have to get up as early as four o'clock in order to get to Jakarta in time for work. A civil servant has to spend at least Rp 55,000 a month if they use ordinary buses to get to and from work. If they use a limited passenger bus or air-conditioned bus the cost will double or triple. The transportation situation will go from bad to worse if the plan to raise the transportation fares by 100 percent is realized.

Civil servants spend much of the day at the office so they have to eat lunch during office hours. This means that they have to spend another Rp 25,000 a month on food. All these expenses have to be deducted from their salaries of Rp 200,000 to Rp 300,000.

The government should consider providing transport and lunch allowances for the civil servants who work in Jakarta. The Jakarta Administration has already done so. It would only be fair to give the same facility to employees of other institutions.

OPEN SINAGA

Jakarta