How many IDs do you want? Middlemen come to the fore

The Jakarta Post, Mon, 08/31/2009

Loopholes in the process of making an identity card (KTP) in the city and its surrounding areas means many people can get, and indeed do have multiple KTPs.

Wedhatama, a resident of Tangerang, says he knew he ought to have handed his old KTP over to the subdistrict office when he made a new KTP at his new residence, also in Tangerang.

"I told the officer I'd need the new KTP if there was a raid," he tells The Jakarta Post with a shrug.

"When I came back to pick up my new KTP, no one asked me to hand back my old one."

He says the failure to take back an applicant's old KTP is the main reason there are so many cases of multiple KTPs.

Slamet, head of a community unit in Tanah Abang district, also laments the weakness of the process. He says the shortcut provided by middlemen opens up more room for the administrative breach.

He adds a newcomer in a neighborhood is only required to submit a copy of their old KTP, four passport-size pictures and some money to get a family card and a KTP quickly.

"I heard it costs Rp 350,000 *US$35* for a newcomer to make a KTP *through a middleman*," he says.

"If you bring a letter of notification from your old residence official that says you're moving to a new address in Jakarta, it's even cheaper."

Slamet says that although many people know that making a KTP is meant to be free of charge, they cannot help but use the services of a middleman, often the neighborhood unit head, because they are often too busy.

Many families also still hold family cards issued before the system went online. The family card, featuring several rows and columns filled in with the names and data of family members, was written in by hand before the civil registry used computers.

With this older family card, a person can simply join a family by writing their name and data into an existing card. Many residents do so on the pretext of being the niece or nephew of the head of the family, when in fact they may not even be related.

Without checking against other documents such as birth certificates, a person can sign up on a family card and obtain a KTP through that alias.

To tackle such problems, the city plans to provide a mobile KTP service for residents in subdistricts this year, an official says.

"The service will be available on Saturdays and holidays to make it easy for working people to process their KTP," says Jakarta Population and Civil Registry Agency head Franky Mangatas Panjaitan.

He adds the new Single Identity Number (SIN) system will help reduce the number of multiple KTPs in circulation, because people will have to be photographed and fingerprinted to get a single identity number.

"The consequence is that people will not able to ask anyone else to process the KTP because they'll have to show up in person," he explains.

Franky says the city will be ready to implement the SIN system and the Population Administration Information System (SIAK) by 2010, a year before the national time frame.

"We're developing the SIAK this year, and once it's done, we'll just need to connect it to the Home Ministry," he says, adding the SIAK will apply down to the subdistrict level.

The Population Management Information System, the current online system that connects subdistricts, subagencies and the city agency, will eventually be phased out.

"The thing we need now is a bylaw," Franky says.

"We hope the new City Council will quickly pass that bylaw."

The city is also gearing up to prepare its officers through trainings.

Gamal Syarief, a registration officer in Gelora subdistrict in Central Jakarta, who recently joined a SIAK training, says he might need more training to better understand the new system.

"The training took only two days, but there's a lot to learn," he says.

He points out a brand new digital camera to be used in implementing the new SIN system, and says the city's zip codes will change.

Besides some other technical matters he might encounter under the new system, Gamal is concerned about the connection speed between the fingerprinting device and the computer.

Although the device from the government has not yet arrived, he says the existing device in the subdistrict works very slowly, leaving some exasperated applicants to simply sign their KTPs.

Applicants can choose to have a fingerprint or a signature on the KTP, under the current system.

Gamal says people rarely show up in person to apply for a KTP.

"Usually it's the heads of neighborhood units who come here, because the applicants are always busy," he says.

-JP/Indah Setiawati