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.