HI fountain, a waste of money

HI fountain, a waste of money

Recently, the Jakarta administration spent Rp 14 billion to renovate the fountain at the Hotel Indonesia (HI) traffic circle.

In my opinion, spending Rp 14 billion on renovating a fountain, while a lot of Indonesians are squeezed by poverty is both foolish and immoral.

With this amount of money you could set up a factory to make bajaj (pedicabs) or bicycles or even cooking pans. Or you could make dormant land productive. In Jakarta alone, 25,000 hectares of land lies dormant. If this money was spent on growing soybeans and lesser galangal, we wouldn't have to import these commodities any more. Soybeans are the raw material for tofu and beancake, both popular among the people in general, while the lesser galangal is used for traditional herbal medicine.

TONTOWY DJAUHARI HAMZAH

Jakarta