T

he newly established South Tangerang municipality is starting to face a serious problem in transporting and dumping garbage at the Tangerang regency administration's Jatiwaringin landfill.

The 32 garbage trucks that usually collect trash from residential areas and markets in the municipality's seven districts were as of Thursday no longer permitted to serve South Tangerang.

"South Tangerang will quickly become a sea of garbage, and this will cause wide-ranging health problems," Didi Supriadi, head of the South Tangerang Health, Parks and Cemeteries Agency, said Thursday.

He said the Tangerang regency administration had withdrawn the 32 trucks from operating in South Tangerang and had closed the landfill in the Sepatan district to garbage coming in from South Tangerang.

"The garbage trucks were paid for by the regency administration, so South Tangerang residents must still be served by them pending the completion of the Tangerang regency administration's handover of assets to South Tangerang municipality," Didi said.

"We're still thinking about a solution and urge all South Tangerang residents to stay calm in facing this problem."

He added there were 40 trucks collecting up to 1,500 cubic meters of garbage around South Tangerang each day. Eight were paid for from the municipal budget, while 32 others belong to the regency.

Didi said the withdrawal of the trucks was a retaliatory move by the Tangerang regency administration, which had recently lost the right to collect tax in the municipality, following a ruling by the Home Ministry that chose to uphold a 2008 law on the formation of South Tangerang municipality.

The law states only South Tangerang has the right to collect the tax.

The head of the regency sanitation and parks agency, Herry Haryanto, denied the garbage trucks had been withdrawn because of a tax squabble.

"We only withdrew 25 trucks, and that was because the drivers were not disciplined and kept having accidents," he told The Jakarta Post, adding the order came from Tangerang Regent Ismet Iskandar.