T

he city administration has lost billions in potential income due to illegal parking, an official has said.

Jakarta Transportation Agency parking head Sunardi Sinaga pointed out on Tuesday that the city had lost at least Rp 200 billion (US$17.03 million) in potential income from illegal parking.

He acknowledged that illegal parking was dominated by organized thugs.

'€œToo many people have been making money from the [illegal parking] business. Local thugs also want their share,'€ he said in Jakarta.

Sunardi said the city earned only Rp 26 billion ($2.2 million) per year from on-street parking and Rp 300 billion ($25.5 million) per year in tax collected from private companies managing parking lots in commercial buildings.

The city administration has announced that it aims to introduce parking meters in an effort to curb illegal parking and, at the same time, boost income.

'€œIn the future, we won'€™t need parking attendants because we will be using parking meters,'€ he said.

Sunardi said the city planned to introduce the metering system on 19 roads in the capital next year.'€œIt will be our pilot project,'€ he said.

Meanwhile, the city aims to conduct an initial tryout in September.

'€œWe will try out the parking meters first on Jl. Agus Salim in Central Jakarta,'€ he said.

The city has introduced several policies to curb illegal parking over the past year, including flattening tires of vehicles parked in prohibited areas. The effort proved fruitful for a brief time. However, the positive change in motorists'€™ behavior was only temporary, as people began to break the rules whenever they could.

Deputy Governor Basuki '€œAhok'€ Tjahaja Purnama said he promised to impose tighter sanctions on those violating the rules.

'€œWe will tow away vehicles [that are parked illegally] and we will demand the owners pay between Rp 500,000 and Rp 1 million in fines,'€ he said at his office.

Ahok said he would instruct city-owned Bank DKI to create a new feature on its ATM menu to support the policy.

'€œPeople will have to pay their fines at Bank DKI ATMs,'€ he said, adding that in that way, fraudulent practices would be minimized.

'€œAfter paying at an ATM, the vehicle'€™s owner can take the receipt [to the pound] and get their vehicle back. It also means that officials on the ground can'€™t ask for kickbacks and so on,'€ Ahok said.

He added that the implementation of the policy would depend on Bank DKI'€™s readiness.