Image: White Water Rafting in Bali. Credit: Nana Bali Tour
It is already well known that several rafting companies operating on Ayung River haven’t met their standard operating procedures (SOP) set out by authorities. These issues caused many concerns, because there are many tourists who use their services every day.
Police, commanded by the Head of Parayangan Polsek, Commissioner Gede Sudyatmaja, met with rafting company owners from Ayung River, on Saturday and gave them an ultimatum to complete their Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) in three months and if not, they will be sanctioned by police.
Sudyatmaja said on Sunday that the police took this stand in order to implement what they call, a Corruption Free Zone (WBK) and Clean and Service Bureaucratic Zone (WBBM), and they will implement these programs in cooperation with the local tourism businesses.
“We have described the SOP to the rafting company owners in order to minimalize errors and incidents. We don’t want any bad events, and especially with so many foreign tourists doing this activity,” he said to balipost.com.
He also said that according to the data, there are 15 rafting companies who operate on Tukad Ayung, who carried hundreds of tourists on their boats every day.
“So, we are talking about many lives here,” he added. He explained that if the rafting companies don’t complete the SOP in time, the police will prohibit them to operate their businesses, especially the companies from the Payangan area.
“If they cannot complete the SOP in time, we don’t have any choice but to prohibit them from operating their businesses until they have completed it,” he said.
He said that police are enforcing this order because there were already accidents with rafting activities on Ayung River. “We also want every guide to complete their certificates. We asked this because several guides don’t have any certificate at all and it would be dangerous for the tourists if they don’t have a professional certificate,” he concluded.
