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Indonesia Blames New York for Parking Ticket Scandal
Ezra Sihite | September 28, 2011

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Darwinista
3:18pm Sep 29, 2011

First one wonders how countries manage that do not have these enormous fines, how come they can park their cars?? Then the second thing that comes to my mind is if this would not be a good idea for the police in Jakarta to start issueing parking tickets at those places where it is legally prohibited to park (where there are signs saying so, and on side walks and so forth. At least the NY police appear to do their work

Tenggara
3:01pm Sep 29, 2011

@jokoku - You misunderstand the structure of American government (decentralized rules). The central government is not requesting this money. It is the government of New York City. Even for a large city like New York, $17 million is fair amount of cash.

Also, if anyone is interested, two economists did a research project on unpaid traffic violations in New York City. They found that norms of corruption (not paying fines) followed officials from their home countries to the UN. The more corrupt a country is, the more likely it is that its officials would violate traffic laws and not pay fines.

During the years of the study, on average each Indonesian diplomat to the UN had 36 outstanding traffic violations per year. This put Indonesia on par with Mali and Burundi, but slightly behind Saudi Arabia in obeying traffic laws.

Here is the link: http://www.usc.edu/schools/business/FBE/seminars/papers/AE_4-28-06_FISMAN-parking.pdf

Kesiangan
1:02pm Sep 29, 2011

No,Jokoku, the UN HQ should be moved to Jakarta. Then nobody can park and the problem is solved.

jokoku
8:28am Sep 29, 2011

another sign of a country of near bankrupcy, start calculating the penni.. even after it got so many prevellage by hosting the UN... why not put the UN HQ in north pole so that NY city doesn't need to bother with the ticket..?

DrDez
8:27am Sep 29, 2011

Escudo

Most the fines are not from the place of work but around NYC (thats what the NYT article says anyway) - second less that 150m from the building is a very large car park, I know we parked there a few years ago, it was less than 2 minutes to the office. Third I really love your logic. We break the law but its your fault for making the law to break - LOL love that... only an Indonesian would have thought that one up so I am assuming you are... Well done

TGIF - They are acting and behaving only as they do at home, certainly a large number at any rate - public servants of all depts here appear to be the very worst offenders in just about anything.


The Indonesian government on Tuesday blamed a lack of legal parking spaces in New York City for the hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid parking tickets its diplomatic officials have racked up.

“This is not a new problem. It has been happening a long time,” Triyono Wibowo, the deputy foreign minister, said on Tuesday.

Of 35 embassy staff members in New York, only one was assigned a parking space, he said.

Indonesia owes the city $725,000 in unpaid parking tickets, though it is far from alone.

New York is owed nearly $17 million in parking tickets issued to diplomats from different countries. The city said unpaid tickets totaled $16.7 million through the end of July. Egypt topped the deadbeat list with $1.9 million in tickets, followed by Nigeria with about $1 million. Indonesia’s $725,000 was third highest.

Triyono said the Diplomat Community Representative Office in New York was seeking a solution to the issue. He added that the city should provide sufficient parking for all Indonesian diplomats.

Priyo Budi Santoso, the House deputy speaker from the Golkar Party, said there should be a special dispensation regarding parking for diplomats.

“It is customary that diplomats from closely related countries get special treatment,” he said.

Another House deputy speaker, Pramono Anung, from the opposition Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), said the tickets racked up by diplomats were an embarrassment to the country. He demanded the Foreign Affairs Ministry pay up.

“It’s shameful and I am sorry if our diplomats owe parking fines,” he said. “We want the Foreign Affairs Ministry to pay the fines, otherwise this small amount of money will embarrass the country.”