Jakarta. The capital city’s government has announced plans to repair footbridges and bus shelters throughout Jakarta in an attempt to improve public transportation and provide safety and comfort for pedestrians.

Head of Jakarta’s Public Transportation Agency, Andri Yansah, said the project will face auction through Jakarta’s Service and Goods Procurement Agency (BLPP).

“The project will start soon as the auction has been completed,” Andri said on Tuesday, stopping of short of naming the value of the project.

A total of 61 footbriges and 1.000 bus shelters will be included within the project this year.

Andri said his agency has prepared new designs for the road project, particularly for the construction of bus shelter, and that the new shelters will be equipped with spaces for promotion and advertisements.

“This space can be rented for advertisement and or promotion by companies. Therefore, we can also increase Jakarta’s local revenue,” Andri said.

Jakarta’s deputy governor Djarot Saiful Hidayat supported the plan, saying that the footbridges and bus shelters could indeed be used for economic purposes.

“Of course we don’t want Jakarta’s public facilities left dirty and unkempt so that’s why we will develop it to become more aesthetic and valuable,” Djarot said on Tuesday.

The construction will be finished before Indonesia’s 70th Independence Day in August, according to Djarot.

The post Jakarta Footbridges and Bus Shelters to Get City Funded Make-Over appeared first on The Jakarta Globe.

Jakarta. Basuki Tjahaja Purnama on Wednesday did something no other Indonesian leader has done since the late Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid was president: the Jakarta governor took a stand for a beleaguered minority group.

Speaking to reporters at City Hall, Basuki said his administration would permit members of the Ahmadiyah, an Islamic sect deemed heretical by the country’s Sunni majority, to congregate for prayers in their own homes, following protests by Islamic hard-liners against a small community of the worshipers in Tebet, South Jakarta.

Those hostile to the group, primarily the notorious Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), a rent-a-mob with religious pretensions, have rather ridiculously taken offense at the fact that the Ahmadis, who have been living and praying in the Bukit Duri neighborhood of Tebet since the 1970s, have consistently declined to worship at a nearby mosque.

The protesters claim this refusal harms their own identity as Muslims, and demand that the Ahmadis be evicted on the grounds that they are violating zoning regulations by holding prayer gatherings in a residential property.

Basuki, though, says his administration will grant an exemption from the regulation to all Ahmadiyah communities in the city who wish to worship at members’ homes instead of at mosques, where their slightly different prayer rituals often mark them out for persecution by their Sunni Muslim peers.

“We’ll let them get around the zoning restrictions so that their houses may be used as places of worship,” he said.

Basuki, a Christian whose own beliefs were the target of a nasty smear campaign by Islamic hard-liners during the 2012 gubernatorial election, said the issue of faith was a personal one and that all citizens should be allowed to worship as they wanted to, in keeping with basic tenets enshrined in the Constitution.

“As for the question of whether a group is heretical or not, that’s something else. We, as the state, cannot get involved in that kind of issue. Constitutionally we’re not supposed to touch it,” he said.

The governor also criticized South Jakarta municipal authorities for sealing off the Ahmadiyah property in Bukit Duri on July 8 on the pretext that it was functioning as a house of worship without the requisite building permit.

“What was the real reason for sealing it? The way I see there, there are plenty of houses of worship all around Jakarta without a building permit. Why haven’t those been sealed off too?” he said.

Basuki’s actions in standing up for the Ahmadiyah are an anomaly in Indonesian governance, where local and national leaders instinctively try to placate or accommodate the persecutors and hard-liners who make up their voter base.

In the neighboring city of Bogor, Mayor Bima Arya Sugiarto pledged long before his inauguration in April 2014 to prioritize finding a resolution to a long-running church closure there by Muslim hard-liners.

To date, the GKI Yasmin church remains sealed off – also on the grounds that it lacked a valid building permit – in direct violation of two Supreme Court orders obliging the Bogor administration to allow the congregation back in.

President Joko Widodo, whose election campaign last year also included vows to address religious tensions, has been silent on the issue, despite the fact that the Yasmin congregation and that from the HKBP Filadelfia church, sealed off in Bekasi, continue to hold Sunday services outside the State Palace in a bid to draw his attention to their plight.

Basuki’s lone act of statesmanship carries echoes of the late Gus Dur, who, during his brief presidency, ended a decades-long ban on the display of Chinese characters and made Chinese New Year an optional holiday in 2001.

Basuki has long professed to have drawn inspiration from Gus Dur, who died in December 2009. He said it was the former president who encouraged him to run for governor of Bangka-Belitung province in 2007. Basuki lost that election, but says Gus Dur still had pearls of wisdom for him even then.

“He said, ‘Forget about governor, you could be the president if you wanted,’” Basuki said on April 25, during a ceremony to unveil a bronze statue of Gus Dur as a child at Amir Hamzah Park in Central Jakarta.

The post Basuki Stands Up for Beleaguered Ahmadiyah Community appeared first on The Jakarta Globe.

Jakarta. Jakarta City Council has announced it will no longer issue permits for the construction of new apartment buildings intended for private sale.

The provincial government says it will instead focus on public housing developments that can be rented by low-income residents.

Ika Lestari Aji, the Jakarta government’s public housing bureau chief, said Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama had issued the housing development directive.

The new policy extends to all apartment buildings that are available for private purchase, including apartments known as rusunami — private developments that receive limited government subsidies.

“The governor has decided there should be no more new apartments,” Ika said at City Hall on Tuesday. “The policy moving forward is to build more rusunawa.”

Rusunawa refers to apartment-like housing complexes that the government rents out at discounted prices.

Jakarta’s public housing bureau plans to build 2,443 rentable units throughout the city this year. Government subsidies for these cheaper, government-owned apartments can cover up to 80 percent of rent.

Basuki’s policy will allow the construction of apartments which have already secured building permits.

The post Jakarta Shifts Building Focus to Low-Income Housing appeared first on The Jakarta Globe.

Jakarta. Jakarta City Council has announced it will stop issuing permits for the construction of new apartment buildings intended for private sale.

The provincial government says it will instead focus on public housing developments that can be rented by low-income residents.

Ika Lestari Adji, the Jakarta government’s public housing bureau chief, said Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama had recently ordered that construction permits for new apartment complexes be halted.

The new policy extends to all apartment buildings that are available for private purchase, including apartments known as rusunami — private developments that receive limited government subsidies.

“The governor has decided there should be no more new apartments,” Ika said at City Hall on Tuesday. “The policy moving forward is to build more rusunawa.”

Rusunawa refers to apartment-like housing complexes that the government rents out at discounted prices.

Jakarta’s public housing bureau plans to build 2,443 rentable units throughout the city this year. Government subsidies for these cheaper, government-owned apartments can cover up to 80 percent of rent.

Basuki’s new housing policy will, however, allow the construction of apartments that have already secured building permits.

The post Jakarta Govt Prioritizes Social Housing Under New Policy appeared first on The Jakarta Globe.

Jakarta. The Jakarta Sanitation Agency is readying all its thousands of cleaners to keep the city presentable during the Asian-African Conference next week.

“Of course keeping Jakarta clean is part of our regular work routine. But especially for the Asian-African summit, we’ll be working even harder,” Saptastri Ediningtyas Kusumadewi, or Tyas, the head of the agency, said on Monday. “Cleanliness reflects a nation’s culture. And obviously we want Indonesia, and Jakarta in particular, to look good in front of the world.” 

The summit will be held on April 19-24 in the Indonesian capital and in the West Java city of Bandung, where the first such conference was famously held in 1955. Dozens of heads of state are expected to attend.

According to Tyas, the main focus of the sanitation workers would be along the routes from Halim Perdanakusuma and Soekarno-Hatta airports to the summit venues and the hotels where participants would be staying.

The agency head also urged Jakarta residents to be a good host by making sure to properly dispose of trash.

“Speak up if you see somebody throwing away trash where it doesn’t belong,” Tyas said, adding that authorities would keep their eyes peeled for violators. 

The post Thousands of Jakarta Cleaners on Duty for Asian-African Conference appeared first on The Jakarta Globe.

Jakarta. Nearly a third of the Jakarta City Council are petitioning to have Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama impeached in relation to the controversy surrounding this year’s city budget. 

Council deputy speaker Muhammad Taufik of the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra), once Basuki’s political vehicle before a falling out last September, said on Wednesday that 33 out of 106 Council members have signed the petition. 

“This is more than enough to impeach [Basuki]. I am sure the number [of signatories] will increase,” Taufik said. 

The Council seeks to lodge a complaint against Basuki at the Supreme Court and ultimately unseat him.

The 33 members to have signed the petition are from Gerindra, the United Development Party (PPP), Golkar and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), Taufik added.

However, the petition must first go through a floor vote at a Council plenary session before the legislature can officially lodge its motion.

A plenary session could be staged as early as next week, according to Taufik, pending an Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) national congress in Bali from Friday to Sunday. 

A majority of the Jakarta City Council are PDI-P politicians. The council’s speaker, Prasetyo Edi Marsudi, the only person authorized to chair a plenary, is also a member of the party.

“We will wait for our friends to return from the PDI-P congress in Bali before staging  a meeting between [party] leaders. Hopefully we can hold a plenary next week in which all councilors can declare their stance [on the petition],” Taufik said. 

Political observers suspect the PDI-P might also approve of the plan, despite strong public support for the reform-minded, uncompromising governor. 

Impeachment would see deputy governor Djarot Saiful Hidayat, a PDI-P man, rising as the capital’s top administrator. 

Basuki and the City Council clashed after the governor submitted to the Home Affairs Ministry a different version of the 2015 draft budget from one the Council had earlier accepted.

Discrepancies between the two versions amount to Rp 12 trillion ($920 million), a figure Basuki referred to as “stealth funds” and proof of a conspiracy among councilors to mark up the value of city several projects.

In a floor vote, the council unanimously voted to launch an inquiry against Basuki on the grounds that his move to submit the lower budget was unlawful and in contempt of the Council’s authority.

After mediation sessions with Vice President Jusuf Kalla, councilors reluctantly agreed to set a temporary budget of Rp 72.9 trillion — a significant drop from their Rp 90 trillion proposal.

However, despite a victory for the governor’s camp, the inquiry and the quest to impeach him continued. 

A committee on Monday concluded that Basuki had overstepped his authority “both in terms of the law and ethics” by bypassing a parliamentary consultation and submitting an unapproved budget proposal to the Home Ministry.

Basuki said he is willing to step down as long as the manipulation inside the city’s budgeting process — which he said occurred year after year — stops. 

“At the very least I got to implement e-budgeting and e-musrenbang for the 2016 [city budget],” he said, referring to an online Regional Development Planning Forum for residents and city officials.

“I want Jakarta to set an example on how to implement and maintain both the e-musrenbang and e-budgeting system. The processes will be more transparent —  everyone can view it,” the governor said.

“So if I’m impeached, at least my goals have been achieved.

“I’m just taking [the impeachment plan] lightly,” he added.

Coming to Basuki’s defense, Robert Endi Jaweng, executive director of the Regional Autonomy Implementation Monitoring Committee (KPPOD), said he is confident the Supreme Court will dismiss the City Council’s motion for impeachment. 

“I am sure the court will decide that Basuki has not broken any law,” Robert said, arguing that the governor has only violated proper procedures and ethics in order to prevent the far more serious crime of budget manipulation. 

Basuki has vocally accused the Council of inserting several projects not originally proposed by his administration into this year’s city budget. 

Among the “stealth” programs highlighted was the million-dollar construction of a wing at a state junior high school in East Jakarta for the school’s alumni, as well as a project to produce a three-part biography on the governor for schools across the capital. 

Similar wasteful projects were also inserted in last year’s budget, such as the procurement of uninterruptible power supply devices and state-of-the-art gym equipment the schools never asked for.  

Robert said an impeachment would trigger backlash from the public, already outraged at how their tax money was spent on wasteful and unnecessary projects, the budgets of which were also inflated. 

“The council’s public image will suffer even more because a majority of Jakarta’s residents support Basuki,” he said. 

“[Impeachment] will also be unproductive for Jakarta’s development.”

The post Jakarta City Council Pounces on Basuki With Petition appeared first on The Jakarta Globe.

Jakarta. Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama has guaranteed that Jakarta’s 2015 budget will take effect by April 20 so that key city projects can be carried out.

“We are waiting for the signature of the Home Affairs Minister. By Apr. 20, the city budget will be ready,” Basuki said at City Hall on Wednesday.

Jakarta’s 2015 budget is long overdue, largely as a result of disagreement between the governor and councillors. Most recently, Basuki and the City Council have locked horns after the governor submitted to the Home Affairs Ministry a different version of the 2015 draft budget from the one the council had accepted

The deadlock was resolved only after Vice President Jusuf Kalla intervened, leading Basuki and councillors to reluctantly agree to set this year’s expenditures to Rp 72.9 trillion ($5.6 billion)

The post Jakarta City Budget Ready by April 20, Basuki Says appeared first on The Jakarta Globe.

Jakarta. The Jakarta administration is racing to complete repairs on major roads across the capital before the Asia Africa Summit in Jakarta and Bandung kicks off on April 19.

Suko Wibowo, maintenance chief at the Jakarta Public Works Office, said workers were fixing potholes along the main avenues of Jalan Sudirman, Gatot Subroto and Rasuna Said in South Jakarta, and M.H. Thamrin, Central Jakarta.

“We have deployed six teams to these areas,” Suko said on Friday.

The agency is targeting to finish the repairs by April 10, he added.

The government has also requested Mass Rapid Transit Jakarta, the company building the capital’s underground rail line along Jalan Sudirman and Thamrin, to put up fences around its construction sites and cover them with conference-related posters.

Suko said his teams would expedite the roadwork, working between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m., to avoid exacerbating the already heavy traffic along major streets.

“For work on [Jalan] Gatot Subroto, we are getting help from the Public Works Ministry,” he said.

Repairs on Jalan Medan Merdeka Utara and the Lapangan Banteng area in Central Jakarta have been completed.

The government is also refurbishing public parks around the area and adding decorative street lights.

Suko said Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama had bypassed the protracted deliberation of the capital’s budget to finance the roadwork and refurbishment.

The governor issued a decree last year allowing the public works office to use Rp 60 billion ($4.6 million) from last year’s budget for the endeavor.

Meanwhile, part of Jalan Sudirman will be closed from 10 p.m. on Sunday to 5 a.m. on Monday, to clear the area for the planned demolition of a pedestrian crossing bridge in front of Chase Plaza in Setiabudi, South Jakarta, said Jakarta Transportation Office chief Benjamin Bukit.

The MRT builders plan to construct a new bridge nearby to integrate the Setiabudi TransJakarta bus shelter with a future MRT station.

During the demolition, southbound traffic from the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle will be redirected to Dukuh Bawah, South Jakarta, from 10 p.m. to 1:30 a.m.

As workers demolish the opposite end of the overhead crossing bridge, northbound traffic heading to the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle will be rerouted to Jalan K.H. Mas Mansyur in Central Jakarta, before connecting to Sudirman near the BNI 46 tower.

The post Jakarta Spruces Up Main Roads Ahead of Asia Africa Summit appeared first on The Jakarta Globe.

Jakarta. Veronica Tan, the wife of Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, said this weekend that she had not received a formal summons to attend a Jakarta City Council inquiry hearing on Monday.

The Jakarta City Council has earlier launched an inquiry against Basuki, who is accused by lawmakers of violating rules and regulations by submitting a budget to the Home Affairs Ministry that they say had not been approved by the legislature.

But the inquiry, which could lead to Basuki’s impeachment, appeared to be diverting from its initial focus, digging up any irregularities related to the governor, including a picture of his wife leading a meeting inside City Hall.

The council has earlier said Veronica was scheduled to attend a hearing on Monday. But Veronica said on Saturday that she had not received an invitation.

Veronica said city officials have allowed her to use a vacant room for meetings with either the Jakarta Family Welfare Association (PKK), a group of city officials’ wives, or the Jakarta chapter of the Indonesian Cancer Foundation, both of which she chairs.

“I think Jakartans can be the judge of what I have done. I need not say more,” she said.

Basuki on Friday was furious to discover his wife had been summoned by the council. “What’s the issue and what is the basis for the inquiry committee to summon my wife,” the governor asked.

Basuki said the inquiry committee had overstepped its authority by involving his wife, who has nothing to do with the budget deliberation.

Tensions escalated between Basuki and the council when the governor refused to submit a Rp 90 trillion ($6.8 billion) version of the budget to the Home Ministry, submitting instead a Rp 78 trillion version his administration proposed.

Basuki accused councilors of surreptitiously adding wasteful spending to the capital’s budget without his approval.

The council unanimously voted to launch an inquiry into the governor on the grounds that his move to submit the lower budget was unlawful and in contempt of the council’s authority.

The post Basuki’s Wife Says No City Council Summons Received appeared first on The Jakarta Globe.

Jakarta. The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, a UK-based international professional association, has appointed Pelita Harapan University, or UPH, as its local affiliate in Indonesia.

London-based CIMA and UPH inked the new partnership in Jakarta on Wednesday. Under the deal, UPH will serve as CIMA’s affiliate in Indonesia, allowing local students to access CIMA classes through UPH.

UPH is a privately run university whose main campus is located in Tangerang, Banten, on the outskirts of Jakarta.

“Prior to this, CIMA programs and classes could only be accessed online. Individuals and companies who wanted to take part in our programs have been asking where they can take the classes,” said Andrias Soesilo, chief representative for CIMA in Indonesia, at the signing ceremony for the CIMA-UPH agreement in Jakarta.

The deal will also provide scholarships financed by CIMA for up to 180 UPH students to study accounting at the university’s three campuses in the Jakarta area, Medan and Surabaya.

“They can take a CIMA [selection] test. If they pass, CIMA will cover their tuition fees in full,” Andrias said.

He added that the scholarships were available for both undergraduate and postgraduate students.

“Undergraduate students will receive a diploma in management accounting at their graduation,” Andrias said. “Scholarships also will be available for masters and MBA students at UPH.”

CIMA, founded in 1919, currently has more 218,000 members and students in 177 countries, according to its website.

“They work at the heart of business in industry, commerce and not for profit organizations. We have strong relationships with employers, and sponsor leading research,” the organization says.

“We constantly update our qualification, professional experience requirements and CPD program. We are committed to upholding the highest ethical and professional standards, and to maintaining public confidence in management accounting.”

CIMA separately partners with the Institute of Indonesia Chartered Accountants (IAI), which released a report last week highlighting local industry leaders’ concerns over young Indonesians’ lack of preparedness to enter the labor market.

Although Indonesia has a plentiful supply of graduates, many fail to meet employers’ requirements, according to the report.

Young workers in Indonesia, and even otherwise qualified technical staff, lack basic practical day-to-day business skills such as communication, problem solving, critical thinking, people management and English-language skills, the report said.

The IAI report added that Indonesia’s young workforce also often lacks the ability to work in teams, interact and collaborate with others.

The report said businesses prefer to hire employees who have the desire and curiosity to learn beyond their job scope, the drive to succeed and the ability to build relationships as well as the more traditional technical skills, background business knowledge and general business acumen required for success.

Both UPH and the Jakarta Globe are affiliated with Lippo Group.

The post UK-Based Chartered Accountant Group Partners With UPH appeared first on The Jakarta Globe.