Jakarta 476 years young, but committee in the dark
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seriously out of date.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.