BATAM ULEMA AGAINST CITY'S PLAN TO TAX COMMERCIAL SEX

Batam, Feb 16 (ANTARA) - Batam's Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI) rejects the city government's plan to tax commercial sex workers because it would mean the legalization of prostitution, a spokesman said.

"Taxing commercial sex workers to increase the city government's revenue implies legalizing their activity. And therefore, we firmly reject the idea," Usman Ahmad, chairman of MUI's Batam branch, said here Tuesday.

Although the taxes on commercial sex workers were expected to yield as much as Rp6 billion per year for the city's treasury, the money was "not good for the community." he said.

"We , ulema, reject the planned fiscal measure whatever its intended purpose is, the more so because the money will eventually be used on public services," he said.

Sharing Usman's view, the chairman of Riau Islands branch of Muhammadiyah, Chasblullah Wibisono, said requiring commerical sex workers to pay tax on their transactions was the same as legalizing prostitution.

"Because the services taxed are illegal, the funds obtained from the tax are illegal too," he said, adding the plan to impose the tax was also against the spirit of the motto "Batam, Civil World Port City", Chasbullah said.

What would be alright was for the city government instead to tax commerical activity taking place around red-light districts such as restaurants, hotels, taxis, ojeks (mototcycle taxis), he said.

Separately, a Batam city councillor, Riki Syolihin, said if every commercial sex transaction happening in Batam was subjected to a 10-percent tax, the city would earn an additional revenue of about Rp6.4 billion per year.

Explaining how the figure was calculated, Riki said Batam's Teluk Pandan red-light district consisted of 40 bars each of which had 30 commercial sex workers.

"If every short-time transaction is taxed Rp150,000, the amount to be earned per year would be 1,200 (prostitutes) times 30 (days) times 12 (months) or Rp6.4 billion," he said.