March 20, 2012
Being a minister has its perks.
For State Enterprises Minister Dahlan Iskan that meant the authority to act as he saw fit in the face of flagrant government incompetence.
Dahlan was heading to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport for a meeting when his car was stopped in a queue of approximately 30 vehicles at a tollgate in the Semanggi area of Central Jakarta at around 6:10 a.m.
Clearly annoyed at the blockage — after all, he had recently issued instructions that each toll booth should only have five cars queuing at the most — the minister got out of his car and marched to the front of the line, where he found that only two of the four booths were manned.
He threw a chair from one of the vacant booths, lifted the barrier blocking the way and gestured for drivers to pass through without paying. Scores of vehicles drove through.
One of the passing vehicles apparently carried the president director of flag carrier Garuda Indonesia, Emirsyah Satar, with whom Dahlan was scheduled to meet that morning.
“Why are you regulating the traffic, sir? So it’s free?” Emirsyah greeted him.
It was unclear how Dahlan responded, but he left afterward and continued to the airport.
Adityawarman, the president director of Jasa Marga, which operates the city’s toll roads, said the staff members manning the two empty toll booths should have been there at 5 a.m. but appeared to have been late.
“We will evaluate this,” said Adityawarman, who has held his post for less than three months. “This was really a pure accident that was due to negligence.”
He said the absent workers would be punished. The incident, he added, would help encourage improvement in the country’s infrastructure services.
However, he insisted that exempting cars from toll fees whenever queues grew too long was not a viable solution.
“It should not be [so backed up], but even so, this should not be pushed as standard procedure in the future,” Adityawarman said.
The executive chairman of the Foundation for the Indonesian Consumer Protection Foundation, Sudaryatmo, agreed that queues at toll booths should never exceed five cars.
“Such mechanisms should become standard procedure in the future so that tollway services improve in line with the twice-yearly rise in fees mandated by law,” he said.
Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Rikwanto said that Dahlan’s actions should be taken as “a representation of his concern for the people.”
Investor Daily
(read in the JG)
di 20 maa 2012 - 19:24