Tantri Yuliandini, Jakarta – A bus stopped, took on passengers, then quickly departed in a choking cloud of smoke. People on the sidewalk scrambled for a handkerchief or piece of tissue to cover their noses from the black trail of fumes.
It is the glaring evidence that, after a decade of requiring public transportation and cargo vehicles to regularly check their roadworthiness, many dubiously certified ones are still on the city's streets.
"Considering how rife extortion practices are in the roadworthy test on public vehicles, we can only hope that the new bylaw requiring private vehicles to have their emissions tested won't become like that," Mitra Emisi Bersih (MEB) program manager Firdaus Cahyadi told The Jakarta Post Wednesday.
He was concerned that, with only two weeks before the bylaw's implementation, no procedures were in place to deal with the prospect of vehicle owners being shaken down to reach the emissions' standard.
"For the last decade, the government has dealt with the testing of only 10 percent of the city's total vehicles, and yet it failed to control illegal practices that went on," Firdaus said.
It was not because the owners of the vehicles were neglectful in coming in for their tests. Firdaus said that an MEB study of 773 vehicles about to be tested at Ujung Menteng test center in East Jakarta in 2004 showed that 99.7 percent of them regularly tested their vehicles' roadworthiness.
The fact was that almost all of them – 99 percent – had been forced, at one time or another, to employ the services of a middleman – meant to save time and avoid bureaucratic snags – for the test.
Difficulties with bureaucracy, at 50.7 percent, was the most frequent complication they faced, followed by those created by the middlemen (29 percent), Firdaus said. The brokers do not come cheap, with some charging between Rp 200,000 (about US$21) to Rp 300,000 per vehicle, while the official charge for a minivan test was only Rp 67,000, he said.
Frequent media reports on the extortion at various testing stations, with many assuming the local officials also take a cut of the charges from the middlemen, have failed to stop the practice.
"Without an official report, it's difficult for us to tell the difference between a middleman and those who aren't, and so far there has not been a report," head of the Jakarta Transportation Agency Nurachman argued, adding that his office would do its utmost to punish any officials involved in the shakedown.
The use of privately owned auto workshops in the emissions tests – instead of government controlled ones for the roadworthy tests for public vehicles – may help minimize illegal practices, but it was no guarantee, Firdaus said.
He urged strict public control and open access to information about emissions tests and air quality.
"The air quality in Jakarta will be one of the main indicators of how successful the emissions test program is. If air quality remains the same after the testing becomes mandatory, then we know that it was not conducted properly."