Govt pressure Sutiyoso to settle Hotel Mulia case
JAKARTA (JP): The government urged Governor Sutiyoso yesterday to insist that the owners of Hotel Mulia immediately pay their Rp 20.5 billion (US$1.7 million) fine for building the hotel two-and-a-half times higher than their permits allowed.
The City municipality, if necessary, could take legal action against the hotel's owners, which include former president Soeharto's second son Bambang Trihatmodjo, Minister of Sports and Youth Affairs Agung Laksono told reporters.
"It's the Hotel Mulia management's moral responsibility. I believe they knew that they violated the rules but they just ignored it," Agung said.
He suggested the governor and his city administration set a firm deadline, or, if necessary, require payment without delay.
The city administration could endorse immediate and transparent measures against the hotel's management without any hesitation, Agung said.
Since Soeharto resigned demands have mounted for all covert cases to be resolved and not be allowed to pile up, he added.
"They're (the ownership of the hotel) all well-educated people, they must have known their rights and their duties," Agung stressed.
The management and contractor of the five-star hotel, the Mulia Group, was fined last year for violating 1975 bylaw No. 4 on high-rise buildings and 1985 bylaw No. 9 on building height regulations.
Based on the block plan approved for the hotel project, signed jointly by former Jakarta governor Surjadi Soedirja and the then state secretary/minister Moerdiono, the owners were allowed to construct a 16-story structure.
The owners -- the Jakarta Country Club and the Mulia Group -- however, proceeded to construct a 40-story tower.
The Jakarta Country Club is a subsidiary of the 1997 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games Consortium, chaired by Bambang, that financed the biannual regional sporting extravaganza. Another major shareholder is National Sports Council Chairman Wismoyo Arismunandar.
None of the hotel's owners were available for comment yesterday and the management refused to discuss the issue.
Former governor Surjadi at first warned the group over the violation but subsequently backtracked by letting the construction proceed on the grounds that the hotel was badly required to accommodate participants of the 19th SEA Games held last October.
Added to the scorn, the hotel was also said to have been constructed on a plot owned by the Gelora Senayan Management Board, according to the board's executive director Yasidi Hambali.
The hotel has a permit to build and use the construction but still has to pay the ground rent to the board, Yasidi said yesterday.
He, however, admitted the board had never reminded the hotel's owners about the long-delayed rent fees as the board thought the issue could be settled later.
Yasidi could not reveal the total rent owed by the hotel, which occupies part of the board's 260-hectare plot in the Senayan area.
Round-the-clock construction ensured completion of the tower before the Games' opening. Soeharto himself inaugurated the 1,008-room hotel before the athletes arrived for the Games. (emf)