Marchio Irfan Gorbiano, Jakarta – President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has asked citizens to strengthen tolerance and harmony ahead of the Christmas and New Year holiday season.
"We have to continuously strengthen our tolerance, harmony and brotherhood as fellow citizens so we can all enjoy comfort and safety during the upcoming Christmas and New Year," Jokowi said on Friday after a limited meeting in preparation for the holidays.
Jokowi said at the meeting that he wanted a sufficient supply of stocks and to maintain the prices of staple foods. He also said he wanted supply and distribution operations to run smoothly during the holidays.
To help accomplish these goals, the President ordered officials to prepare transportation services.
Furthermore, he said he had asked the Indonesian Military, the National Police and the National Intelligence Agency to maintain security.
National Police spokesperson Sr. Comr. Argo Yuwono said the police, the military and local administrations would jointly deploy 198,807 personnel for security and traffic control in the coming weeks. Local health and transportation officials would also join the patrol.
Argo said police officers would be deployed to secure shopping malls, churches and tourist destinations, while other personnel would be assigned to oversee the flow of traffic in several locations across the country.
He further said the police were preparing to handle severe traffic jams in cities and regencies that typically morphed into travel hubs during the holidays, such as Berastagi in North Sumatra, Puncak and Lembang in West Java and Merak in Banten.
"We will add more personnel in those locations, especially since many traffic accidents happened there [in past years]," Argo said. (nal/glh)