Civil Servants Of Medan City Govt Criticized By Bobby Nasution: The Air Quality Board Has Been Broken For A Long Time

Medan City Communication and Information Office

JAKARTA - The Mayor of Medan, Bobby Nasution, conducted a test of the exhaust emissions of motorized vehicles belonging to the public at the Hero's Cemetery parking lot, Sisingamangaraja street. He hopes that this routine activity will not just be a ceremony without any results.

The test was carried out by Bobby Nasution by inserting the test equipment into the vehicle exhaust. After waiting a few minutes, the results of the exhaust emission test came out and the vehicle had good exhaust gases and was still below the threshold.

Then Bobby Nasution put a sticker that stated the vehicle passed the emission test.

This motor vehicle exhaust emission test is an Urban Air Quality Evaluation (EKUP) activity held by the Medan City Government through the Environmental Service (DLH) in an effort to keep the air quality in the city of Medan clean. In addition, this activity is also to reduce air pollution.

Bobby Nasution said, this activity is routinely carried out every year. But since the COVID-19 Pandemic, it has not been done.

"The exhaust gas emission test for motorized vehicles has not been carried out for a long time, because Medan has PPKM level 2, today we are doing it again to suppress air pollution in order to maintain air quality in the city of Medan," said Bobby Nasution, quoted from the official website of the Medan City Government.

Bobby Nasution asked that this activity not only be carried out routinely to spend the budget, but the function of the Environmental Service to protect the environment could be further optimized.

"It's like our air quality board has been damaged for a long time, please pay attention and repair it. Don't just do this annual routine but nothing shows clearer results," said President Jokowi's son-in-law, Tuesday, October 12.

Meanwhile, the Head of the Environmental Service, Zulfansyah explained, this activity is an evaluation of urban air quality (Ekup), meaning that environmental monitoring activities are based on the Circular of the Director-General of Air Pollution Control of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry Number 5/21 of 2017 which aims to reduce or manage air quality by reducing the burden of air pollution through emission measurement.

"This motor vehicle exhaust emission test is carried out for 2 days. Tomorrow it will be carried out in the Tomang Elok area. We will test 250 motorized vehicles with the scope of their performance achievements, namely vehicle gas emissions, traffic performance surveys, and roadside air quality monitoring," said Zulfansyah.

"This activity focuses on the performance of the vehicle being measured, if the average vehicle emission is poor then the urban air quality is also bad. In addition, we do not take action but rather educate. This means suggesting that the vehicle is repaired and using fuel with higher octane," Zulfan explained while targeting 1,500 vehicles to be tested in 2022.