(10/30/2010)
The Commission for the Supervision of Business Competition (KPPU) points to the monopoly on taxi operations from East Java's Juanda airport as proof of the culture of unhealthy business practice still prevalent in Indonesia.
Quoted in Bisnis.com, the chief of the KPPU office in Surabaya, Dendy Rakmad Sutrisno, said the taxi monopoly in Surabaya declared illegal by the courts earlier this year, is a common phenomenon at many airports across Indonesia.
Sutrisno blamed the situation of monopolies on airport taxi operations on the fact that many provincial governments still do not fully understand Law No. 5 of 1999 on business competition and the general reluctance of many to enter into a truly open and free business environment.
"The main problem is (an old) way of thinking, that's why the KPPU has spotlighted this case (the taxi monopoly at Juanda Airport Surabya) which involves a State Owned Enterprise – PT Angkasa Pura I," explained Sutrisno. PT Angkasa Pura I is the state company that manages the Surabaya airport operation.
He also explained that at several airports across the Country old practices are retained reserving the right to carry passengers into the airport to a single company appointed by PT Angkasa Pura.
A similar practice persists in Bali where taxis not owned by a Koperasi Taxi Ngurah Rai Bali are not allowed to pick up arriving passengers from the airport. The Bali taxis operate without meters and charge a set tariff specified destinations across Bali.
Complaining that monopoly taxi operations are open to abuse, Sutrisno said an open and competitive business culture in which all taxi are allowed to operate from all Indonesian airports is the only real solution.
Such monopolies are expressly prohibited under the anti-monopoly law of 1999, but the practice persists in the absence of an organized legal challenge against the airport authority and the local taxi monopoly.
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