Fast Follow ups

1. Immigration Matters

First Secretary Information Affairs of the Indonesian Embassy in Singapore, Widya Rahmanto has written to clarify that the Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia in Singapore does not issue extensions of visas as stated in the letter I quoted on Wednesday. Instead, the Embassy only issues the types of visa and the fees as follows:
Transit Visa S$30
Tourist Visa S$70
Single Business/Social & Cultural Visa S$70
Multiple Business Visa S$140
Semi-permanent Visa S$110.

The Embassy does not charge extra to any visa applicants and all the fees are publicly shown at the immigration counter. In this case, if (the correspondent) had paid extra charges for applying for one of the above mentioned visas, I hope he could kindly provide the Embassy with the date of application, type of visa he applied for and name of person (if any) whom he had paid the extra charges to. The Embassy is very concerned about this matter because we do not and will not tolerate any illegal practices by our officials.

If (he) was complaining about how he extends his stay in Indonesia, it means he was referring to the formal procedure that he as a foreigner has to respect.

I'm off to Singapore on Thursday to obtain a "Semi-permanent Visa". I've budgetted S$200 for it.

2. Yesterday I suggested that allowing the rural poor to build flimsy dwellings on land which is known to be prone to slippage is criminally negligent.

I'm glad that SBY agrees.

Yesterday, the government urged people living in disaster-prone areas across Java to move to safer places to minimize loss of human life, as flooding and landslides would strike again in the near future.

Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Aburizal Bakrie said the government would also update the map of disaster-prone areas and distribute them to regional administrations down to the village level on a monthly basis to help them prepare for evacuation and thus prevent fatalities.

"We expect that these people would move voluntarily or be willing to be relocated to safer places for the sake of their own lives," he said, after accepting a 13 million Yen (US$112,069) donation from the Japanese government, handed over by Japanese Embassy Minister Masafumi Kuroki.

The Jakarta Post does not report what the Japanese donation is intended for.
 

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