More govt officials in casual dress
More govt officials in casual dress
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta, Bandung
About a dozen members of the Indonesian Engineers Association
(PII) looked neat in their long-sleeved batik shirts when they
met Vice President Jusuf Kalla at his office on Jl. Medan Merdeka
Selatan, Central Jakarta, on Tuesday.
The traditional attire was appropriate for the vice
presidential office, where the air conditioning system was set at
25 degrees Celsius. The engineers looked fresh as they left the
venue of the meeting that lasted for about 45 minutes.
PII chairman Rauf Purnama told reporters that he and other his
association members supported the government-led national
campaign to conserve energy in view of the lingering fuel crisis.
However, he said that wearing batik shirts was a long-held
tradition of the association members as they always wore batik on
Fridays.
"It's light, isn't it?" was the comment made by the Vice
President during the meeting with the association members,
referring to their decision to wear batik shirts instead of
formal suits, according to a PII engineer.
Kalla, a seasoned businessman turned politician, has discarded
his official suit since the campaign ahead of the presidential
election last year.
The Vice President often wears short-sleeved shirts in private
and official events, saying that people often associate it with
"hard work".
The campaign for energy conservation also got a positive
response from many officials of the Jakarta provincial
administration.
At City Hall on Tuesday, a number of high-ranking officials of
the Jakarta administration and state-owned electricity company PT
PLN chose to brace the heat by wearing official attire, although
they knew the air-conditioning in the room where they met was set
at 25 degrees Celsius.
They said that they wore suits because they were attending a
formal ceremony, in which the Jakarta administration and PLN
signed a memorandum of understanding.
Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso and several other officials,
however, did not wear suits at Tuesday's ceremony, but were
dressed in long-sleeved shirts instead.
City Hall has also limited the use of lights and elevators,
while many officials have been forced to walk up the stairs to
get to their offices on the second or third floors.
"I will become slimmer if I have to walk up these stairs every
day," said Jakarta administration secretary Ristola Tasmaya while
taking the stairs to his office on the third floor at City Hall.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his ministers have set
an example in their support for the energy conservation drive by
embracing a modest lifestyle and discarding formal attire.
Susilo issued on Sunday Presidential Decree No. 10/2005 on
energy conservation following the increasing price of oil on the
international market.
In the West Java capital of Bandung on Tuesday, the President
called on officials and public figures to wear traditional shirts
more often while attending official events in a bid to promote
national products.
"How beautiful it would be if we wore shirts that represented
Indonesian tradition and culture during state and government
receptions, or other important social events," he told thousands
of people attending a ceremony to mark the Cooperatives Day in
Bandung.
The President said that he was often "forced" to become a
model for certain traditional attire at the request of some
parties.
For example, the President referred to an occasion where he
wore a Kalimantan-made batik shirt as local people wanted to
promote their batik products.