Hotman Siregar – A fatal MetroMini bus accident on Tuesday has led to calls for the Jakarta city administration to take over the long-running public transportation operator.

"The city administration should just take over MetroMini. The developers are illegal and out of control," Jakarta Transportation Board chief Azas Tigor Nainggolan said at City Hall on Wednesday.

According to Azas, the company behind the MetroMini, the city's red-and-blue mid-sized buses, had been prohibited from operating in the city since 2009, with its operating permit frozen, therefore making its current activities illegal.

"Those buses have no documents, the drivers do not have driving licenses," he said, adding that such issues had been a major contributor to various public transportation accidents on the city's streets. "The transportation office is not brave enough to crack down [on them]. Their operational licenses should just be revoked altogether," Azas said.

Not only were the city buses operating without official documents, most of the mid-sized and big buses were in very poor physical condition, he added.

His remarks came a day after a MetroMini bus serving the route between Senen, Central Jakarta, and Pondok Kopi, East Jakarta, was involved in an accident that claimed the life of a middle school student and injured two others.

An investigation into the crash by the East Jakarta Police found the vehicle was not roadworthy, with the clutch held together using a piece of rubber from an inner tube.

"The investigation revealed that the MetroMini bus involved in the crash was not certified for use," Adj. Comr. Agung Budi Laksono, the head of the police's traffic accident unit, said on Wednesday.

Police identified the victim as 13-year-old schoolgirl Benity. She was hit by the bus while crossing the TransJakarta bus lane with two friends, Rahmi and Revi, who suffered serious injuries.

The bus driver, identified by police as W.S., admitted that he did not have a driver's license and that he had been cited by police several times before. He faces up to six years in jail if convicted.

Azas said he appreciated the city administration's plan to revitalize Jakarta's public transportation system but asked that emphasis also be placed on traffic law enforcement efforts.

"Before revitalizing transportation, law enforcement has to be strictly implemented," he said.

Udar Pristono, the head of the Jakarta Transportation Office, echoed Azas's indignation over MetroMini's operations, which he said had often placed the lives of commuters in jeopardy, and suggested that the operator be disbanded.

"MetroMini has been operating without a license. It has no operational license. When its buses are stopped [by law enforcement officers], the company still insists on taking other opportunities to operate. This is no longer just the transportation office's problem," Udar said on Wednesday, adding that his office had many other transportation-related issues to deal with besides law enforcement.

He suggested that the closure of MetroMini would be the best option, as the operator's own monitoring efforts had failed. "MetroMini no longer qualifies to operate in Jakarta. The buses are inadequate. So just disband them," he said.

Separately, the city administration plans to add a number of mid-sized and bigger buses, including those operated by PPD, a state-owned operator, in an attempt to boost city's the public transportation fleet.