Nurfika Osman – An embarrassing new survey by a consumer advocacy group reveals that 74 percent of officials working for the city administration smoke in their offices, a clear breach of city own bylaws that prohibit lighting up in public places.
Tulus Abadi, from the Indonesian Consumer Protection Foundation (YLKI), said the findings were disappointing because city officials were supposed set a good example for others.
"This is ironic as they should be role models for citizens in upholding the 2005 bylaw, which is aimed at reducing the number of people smoking in public, which disturbs and harms others," Abadi said.
He said the 2008 survey sampled 130 administration offices around Jakarta.
Violations of the bylaw carry a maximum fine of Rp 50 million ($5,000) and prison sentences of up to six months.
"Since the officials are violating the laws that they made, monitoring cannot be done simply by the officials," Abadi said. "It also needs supervision from the public."
He recommended provisions be added to the bylaw that would empower residents to demand those found smoking in public places to stop. Abadi said senior officials should not be exempt from the ban or efforts to shame violators. "Intensive monitoring is needed to fully implement the law," he said.
Imam Prasodjo, a sociologist from the University of Indonesia, said the public could be involved by forming pressure groups consisting of people from various occupations and levels of society, such as teachers, politicians or even celebrities, who could hand out deterrents.
Such sanctions, he said, could be as simple as cards issued to smokers stating: "You are violating the 2005 bylaw on air pollution control and you are harming the people around you."
"Basically, all we have to do is make them feel publicly ashamed of what they have done," Prasodjo said, adding that the government should get involved by helping to coordinate these kinds of efforts. "All of us have a role to play to make sure everyone can help 'butt out smokers,'?" he said.
"We can even create a Web site showing people who smoke in public places. Why not?"
The city enacted a bylaw on air pollution control four years ago that bans smoking in enclosed public places, including all trains, buses, vans, offices, restaurants and cafes.
Ridwan Panjaitan, head of the law enforcement unit at the Jakarta Environmental Board, said city officials were being monitored and asked by their unit chiefs not to smoke in their offices.
"We've always monitored them and asked them not to smoke while working in their offices," Panjaitan said. "We have been doing this since the first day we implemented the law and I think the number is decreasing every year."
In July this year, the YLKI surveyed 549 public mikrolets (minibuses), Patas express city buses and the smaller MetroMini and Kopaja buses in five municipalities and found that smoking had continued unabated in nearly 90 percent of the vehicles, despite the city bylaw.