If there was any doubt that a radical rethink is needed for the provision of public facilities in Jakarta, than the fact that nearly 50 percent of the city’s garbage trucks will be inoperable in two years’ time should prove a convincing argument.
Eko Bharuna , the head of the city’s sanitation office, said that in 2010, 201 of the city’s 797 garbage trucks were already unusable and that number is expected to rise to 367 trucks by 2014.
He added that most of the trucks were at least 15 years old, which is a bad sign in a city that currently produces some 6,500 tons of waste a day.
If things stay as there are, Jakarta’s residents better brace themselves for a huge stink.
And the amount of garbage the city is churning out daily will only rise along with the rapid rise of the metropolis’s population. There is a certain urgency to rapidly deal with the prospect of having to handle rising amounts of waste with dwindling resources.
Thankfully, however, the city government is adopting a fresh approach in an effort to solve its garbage problem.
Eko said that in the future, the city sanitation office would only act as a regulator while the operator of the city’s waste transportation as well as processing services will go into the hands of the private sector.
But the government should also bear in mind that garbage disposal and processing is a public service and that it should not try to make a profit when handing over the business to the private sector. Private businesses are there to make profit, but in this case, profits should also be restricted so as not to burden the public purse.
The government has ample time to prepare for this well ahead. It still has hundreds of garbage trucks in operation, for at least another couple of years.
It might have taken some time to get to this stage but this move is highly welcome. The government should not be in business and where the private sector can do a better job, it should hand over the reins.
The government should focus on ensuring that regulations are business friendly and not too cumbersome but leave the private sector to manage such facilities efficiently and effectively.
Editorial: Let the Private Sector Clean Up City’s Trash | The Jakarta Globe.
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