Jakarta 476 years young, but committee in the dark

Bambang Nurbianto and Arya Abhiseka, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The organizing committee for Jakarta's annual anniversary celebrations appears not to be doing its job this year, with no information center set up as yet and a guidebook crammed full of misleading information.

Although Governor Sutiyoso launched the countdown to the 476th anniversary celebration on May 31, the organizing committee secretariat at City Hall was unable to provide anything near like a complete list of events to our reporters.

Meri Simanjuntak, a secretariat staffer, explained on Tuesday that even the official program had as yet not been printed. A guide book was available but the information contained in it was seriously out of date.

For example, the book says that an international kite festival should have been held from June 4 to June 6. In fact, it will be held on July 4.

A number of important events, including the Jakarta Fair, Paser Baroe festival and Kemang Street Festival, are not even mentioned in the guide book.

"Hopefully, the (new) guidebooks will be ready this week and we will immediately distribute them," Meri told The Jakarta Post.

This year, the anniversary organizing committee is chaired by Deputy Governor Fauzi Bowo.

Other important events to be held to celebrate the city's anniversary, which falls on June 22, include JakArt with over 600 artistic performances, the Jakarta Great Sale, Jakarta Metropolitan Rally and the Jakarta 10K race.

The celebrations will reach their peak on the eve of June 22 with a number of artistic performances to be held at the Taman Impian Jaya Ancol recreation park in North Jakarta.

Meanwhile, Ahyat M. Awe, a city administration spokesman, admitted on Wednesday this year's Jakarta anniversary was poorly organized. When asked, he declined to reveal the budget that had been allocated for the events.

"We are aware that there are deficiencies in this year's publicity campaign," he said.