Experts slam Monas Park fence project

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Ten landscaping experts demanded on Monday that the city administration cancel its Rp 9 billion (almost US$900,000) project to erect a fence around the National Monument (Monas) Park in Central Jakarta, saying the project would spoil the aesthetics of the park and make it less accessible to the public.

The City Parks Agency, however, has insisted it will go ahead with the work. Agency head Mauritz Napitupulu said 32 contractors would participate in an open bid for the project, which would start in July.

The bid was announced in the little-known Sentana publication.

The city administration has been criticized for wasting billions of rupiah on various projects at Monas Park.

On Monday, the 10 experts, from private Trisakti University's architects and landscape department, said that by proposing Monas Park be fenced in, the city administration was showing that it had poor aesthetic sense.

"It would deprive people's right to public space and also damage the symbolical and historical values of the park," the department's chairwoman, Rully B. Budiyanti, said in a hearing with the council's Commission D for development affairs.

The administration should encourage public participation in projects related to public rights, including park management, she said.

She suggested the Rp 9 billion fund allocated for the project be used to manage vendors in parks and to cover the park's operational costs.

The commission's chairman, Sayogo Hendrosubroto, said the council had not approved the installation of a fence.

"We did not know that the project was a high fence. We were just informed that it would be a border," he told reporters after the hearing.