People queue to get their e-ID card printed on the last day of the Home Ministry’s e-ID card service during the Nusantara Expo and Forum 2017 at Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Jakarta, Sunday (22/10). Citizens who have registered their electronic identity (e-ID) card data at the event can get their printed e-ID at their resident subdistrict offices. The event’s e-ID service saw overwhelming interest from Jakartans and residents of nearby cities.
JAKARTA, KOMPAS – Electronic ID cards (e-IDs) cannot be processed at the district and subdistrict offices of all provinces across the country. Recording data and printing e-IDs can only be done at subdistrict offices in Jakarta.
“The standards, equipment and material used for the e-ID cards are the same [across the country],” Home Ministry director general of population and census Zudan Arif told a press conference on Sunday (22/10) at Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (TMII) cultural park in Jakarta.
Jakarta population and census agency head Edison Sianturi, the South Tangerang population and census agency’s registration head Heru Sudarmanto and secretary I Gede Surata of the Home Ministry’s population and census directorate general also attended the press conference.
Despite all regions having been equipped with the same technical standards for e-ID processing, the fact remains that a majority of district and subdistrict offices can only record data. Printing e-ID cards is still mostly done at local population and census agencies. “Subdistrict offices can only wait for the cards to be printed. Afterwards, they can distribute the cards to residents,” said Tanah Tinggi subdistrict head Hadi Ismanto of Tangerang, Banten.
Because of the disparity, Zudan urged the people to visit their local population and census agencies. There, they can ask for officers to print their e-IDs if their data has been inputted.
To facilitate the public, the government may visit local neighborhoods and hold a data-recording service. “People need to send a letter to us and we will come to their area,” Zudan said.
Indonesian Ombudsman commissioner Ahmad Suadi said the government should be more proactive in providing e-ID services. “[The government] should not wait for people’s requests, as providing e-ID cards is the government’s responsibility and people’s right,” he said.
Suadi added that people living far from government offices should be prioritized in the e-ID service. The Ombudsman has found that fishing communities in North Maluku, for instance, must cross the sea to submit their e-ID data. Once they arrive at government offices, they still need to queue for hours.
High enthusiasm
On Sunday, the last day of recording data and printing e-IDs at Nusantara Expo in TMII, thousands lined up at the population and census directorate general’s booth. People had come from Jakarta, Bogor municipality, Bogor regency, Tangerang municipality, Tangerang regency, South Tangerang municipality, Bekasi municipality, Bekasi regency, Yogyakarta, Cilacap and several cities outside of Java.
The organizing committee provided two desks outside the exhibition area to print e-IDs. One of the desks was for Jakartans and the other was for non-Jakartans. People jostled one another around the two desks to check for their new e-ID cards, which were arranged alphabetically.
Zudan said that the booth had received 22,000 e-ID processing requests in five days. By noon on Sunday, 18,994 requests had been processed while another 3,000 requests had been received and were being processed. About 13,000 requests were from Jakartans while the rest were from 14 regions across Indonesia.
Only 10,000 e-ID cards were printed at the event. Data verification and integration were still pending for the rest.
Two days earlier, people had stood in a 1-kilometer-long queue at the Keong Emas Imax Theater. They stayed in line despite the changing weather, as the particularly hot day was interrupted by heavy rain.
