Increase In Fuel Prices Must Be A Momentum Of General Transportation

Illustration of ANTARA PHOTO/Oky Lukmansyah/wsj.

JAKARTA - Head of the Central Indonesian Transportation Society Advocacy and Community Affairs (MTI) Division, Djoko Setijowarno, assessed that the increase in fuel prices was the right momentum to fix public transportation for both passengers and goods so that public transportation rates should not be increased.

"It is better if the price of subsidized fuel for public transportation with legal entities does not need to go up," he said in a statement in Jakarta, Tuesday, September 6.

According to Djoko, the momentum for increasing fuel prices is also appropriate to fix and accelerate all public transportation to become legal entities, because so far there have been quite a lot of public transportation without legal entities, both passengers and goods.

"Of course, for the transportation of goods that are already legal entities and have no excess dimensions and payloads (over dimension and overload/ODOL) that are allowed to receive subsidized fuel," he said, quoted from Antara.

In the transportation sector, the government has allocated social pads to reduce the impact of the increase in fuel prices, including public transport transportation subsidies of Rp2.17 trillion, where local governments are asked to set aside special allocation funds (DAU) and profit-sharing funds (DBH) for subsidies in the transportation and social protection sectors. The transportation sector will be provided for public transportation assistance, online motorcycle taxis and fishermen.

However, according to Djoko, social support will be much more useful given to official public transportation with legal entities than if the government provides social support for online transportation. Moreover, the distribution is carried out through areas that are at risk of misappropriation.

He also considered it very ironic that there was assistance for online motorcycle taxis, while there was no assistance for city bus transportation, rural transportation, AKDP, AKAP, box cars, and truck drivers.

"If the truck driver helps with the smooth flow of the strike goods, the distribution of goods can be chaotic. However, if the motorcycle taxi driver breaks down, the distribution of goods will certainly continue," he said.

The academication of the Unique Soegijapranata Civil Engineering Study Prodi also assessed that the delegation of the public transportation subsidy budget to the regions was very prone to misappropriation, because until now there is no online driver database (driver). Even now the government does not have data on the number of online drivers because it is not provided by the applicator.

Djoko said that until 2022, public transportation for passengers is decreasing. Likewise, urban transportation, city transportation and city transportation within the province (AKDP) are now quite a lot missing. Many cities no longer have urban transportation due to being eroded by easy-to-have motorbikes.

"The risk of the number of accidents increasing and fuel consumption will also increase. Not to mention the increase in air congestion and pollution in line with the increase in motorized vehicles," he said.

Therefore, the government is considered to need to focus on managing and developing passenger public transportation. According to him, without increasing the price of subsidized fuel, it is very possible to distribute it to public transport operators.

Currently, supervision of subsidized fuel distribution for public transportation can be carried out through applications supported by operator arrangements. Djoko said this could be a momentum for structuring public transportation so that all are legal entities and guarantee the safety and security of users.

"The government needs to provide subsidies for public transportation, both passenger transportation and legal entities. Subsidies for transporting goods are provided to improve the welfare of drivers who have often been underestimated by the government. In fact, the driver of goods transportation is the spearhead of the smooth flow of goods," he said.