The Jakarta Government has been under fire recently for some questionable budget decisions. Following the plastic tree debacle, now the administration is working to justify spending about IDR 9.6 billion (USD 690,000) on trash bins imported from Germany.
To many Indonesians, the idea of the Jakarta government choosing to spend IDR 3.6 million per unit on trash bins shipped all the way from Germany sounds not only like a ridiculous waste of money but also an insult in that they chose not to buy from a local manufacturer.
So when screenshots of the Jakarta government budget website showing officials had spent that amount on 2,640 trash bins recently went viral on social media, people were outraged.
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While Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan seemed unprepared to talk about the trash cans when asked by reporters yesterday, others in his administration have explained why they picked the German-made Weber brand trash bins specifically rather than Indonesian-made ones.
Hary Nugroho, the head of infrastructure and facilities at the Jakarta Environment Agency, said that the bins were chosen through the government’s e-catalog (established under former Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama in order to increase budgetary transparency) and that there were no local brands in the catalog that met the specifications they needed.
“Comparing (the Weber bins) to the local brand is not possible. First the manufacturing is different and second [local brands] have not been certified internationally, so, if our garbage compactor trucks are already international standard but we use the local garbage bins that break then it will be a shame for Jakarta, especially for the Asian Games.” Hary told Detik yesterday.
Hary said it was very important that the bins meet their exact specifications to maximize efficiency. The Jakarta government has been purchasing modern trash compactor trucks to replace the non-specialized trucks previously used to haul garbage. The new compactor trunks can use hydraulic arms to automatically lift and empty rubbish bins, but only those with compatible designs.
According to Hary, the compatible design and high-grade durability were both important factors in choosing the Weber-brand bins from the catalog. He also claimed that the price per unit was actually cheaper than some Indonesian brands of lesser quality.
We’re not waste management experts, but those seem like fairly reasonable points and the idea of spending IDR 3.6 million on a large trash bin that’s supposed to last through years of hard use hauling the trash of hundreds of families actually doesn’t sound too unreasonable to us — assuming they actually help to make Jakarta into a cleaner, safer city. If they can do that, then they might even be a bargain.
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