Minister of Transportation asks IT Ministry to block Uber and GrabCar apps, but President Jokowi disagrees

On the very same day that 2,000 taxi drivers gathered at the National Monument to protest ride hailing services such as Uber and GrabCar, the Ministry of Transportation wrote to the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology officially asking them to block the aforementioned company’s apps.

State Secretary Pratikno revealed the blocking request when meeting with representatives of the Land Transport Motorists Association (PPAD), one of the groups that was organizing today’s protest in Monas.  

“There is a letter from the Ministry of Transportation to Kemenkominfo to block the applications (Uber and GrabCar) online. Yes, of course, we are waiting for what steps are further implemented,” Pratikno said today as quoted by Kompas.

Kompas also obtained an excerpt of the letter from the Ministry of Transportation, explicitly requesting that the IT Ministry block the Uber and GrabCar application (which is actually only one service offered by the Grab applications, which also offers the government ok’d GrabTaxi application) and to ban “all similar applications for not cooperating with the public transport companies that have official permission from the government.”

The Transportation Ministry may seem like it’s serious about shutting down Uber and GrabCar this time, but they also seemed serious when they tried to carry out a similar ban against the ride-hailing apps (as well as Go-Jek and other motorcycle taxi apps) in December, but huge public outcry as well as a public intervention by President Joko Widodo caused the ministry to flip flop on the ban less than a day later.

Jokowi has stepped into the current transport app debate this time, expressing through a member of communications team that he thought blocking the apps was premature and that a “middle road” solution still needs to be researched.

Late last year, Uber and Grab both claimed that they had been given the legal green light to operate in Jakarta after meeting certain requirements including have a local legal entity (PMA) that would pay taxes and having adequate insurance. But Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama angrily denied the claims.