The Home Affairs Ministry is currently reviewing a bylaw recently endorsed by the Jakarta administration, which bans beggars from the city's streets. The Ministry is considering whether the bylaw contradicts a “higher law”, particularly, the Constitution or public interest.

If approved, the bylaw will make it an imprisonable offence to beg or give money to beggars. The Jakarta administration endorsed the bylaw in an effort to create a “tidier city”. Beggars, buskers and street vendors are regarded as a “disturbance to public order”.

At best, the bylaw demonstrates a complete disconnect between the city's administrators and those they were elected to protect. At worst... well, it doesn't get any worse than that.

I doubt that many of Jakarta's more fortunate residents would agree that the city needs to be “tidied” of beggars. Most would be horrified to think that giving money to the poor is a crime. By nature, Indonesians are generous. Giving money to beggars is part of daily life. The Koran requires it. It's in the national psyche.

Already the bylaw is having quite an impact – though it is not yet in force. There are notably fewer beggars and buskers at traffic lights. The two or three elderly women who wait at the intersection of Radio Dalam and Metro Pondok Indah are gone, replaced by teenage boys with banjos and little vocal skills. A widow interviewed by Jakarta Post said that her daily income had dropped from 30,000 rupiah (about US$3) to 18,000 (just under two dollars). By United Nations standards, she is now below the poverty line.

In addition to the prohibition against begging, the bylaw makes it an imprisonable offence to:

* trade on footpaths

* work as a busker or street peddler

* transport dusty or foul goods in an open vehicle

* operate or use an ojek (motor cycle taxi)

* ask for assistance or donations

* live on green strips, parks and in public places

* work as a sex worker

* work as a traditional medical practitioner or mystic

In many respects this is a direct attack on city residents. The thousands of kaki limas (food sellers) that wander the streets selling gado gado and bakso with dodgy meat-balls will all need permits. Tiny warung (restaurants), with their charcoal stoves, will disappear. Ojex (motor cycle taxis), a vital part of the city's transportation network, will be no more. All in the interests of creating a “tidier city”.

Jakarta will never be a “tidy city”. It's the buskers, food vendors, swarms of motor cycles and general chaos that makes this so much more than just another big polluted Asian city. I don't want a “tidier city”. I want to be able to buy chicken satay from the street outside my gate. I wonder how many Jakarta residents would choose a “tidier city” over their street food or the convenience of an ojek.

Which begs the question: if you take all this away, what will replace it? The ojex, kaki lima and warung exist because of demand. They are valid living parts of the city's infrastructure. If the city's administrators aren't happy, they need to provide alternatives.