Special team sought to maintain Monas

JAKARTA (JP): A city councilor has urged the municipality to set up an integrated team to supervise the maintenance of the National Monument (Monas) in Medan Merdeka Square, Central Jakarta.

The establishment of the team, which should be under the supervision of the Central Jakarta mayoralty office, is badly needed due to the poor condition of the monument and its surroundings, Amarullah Asbah, head of Commission C for finance affairs, said Monday.

"The poor state of Monas is mainly due to the unavailability of a team to coordinate its management," he said.

Currently, the maintenance of Monas is administered by different agencies. "The city sanitation agency, for example, is in charge of cleaning the area, the city park agency of tending the park and the city public works agency of maintaining the building," Amarullah said.

The counselor argued that having so many agencies involved made coordination arduous. "Can you imagine that just to get garbage cans installed takes months to process," he said, adding that this was caused mainly by the absence of an independent office in charge of maintenance at Monas.

Amarullah, therefore, underlined the importance of establishing an integrated team directly supervised by the Central Jakarta mayoralty.

"With this kind of team, red tape could be eliminated and the mayoralty would have full responsibility of taking care of Monas," he said.

A similar team has also been established in West Jakarta mayoralty with the aim of coordinating the renovation of old buildings in the area.

"I hope the municipality will act soon on this because the shabby condition of Monas needs immediate attention," he said, adding that monument's surroundings had been turned into a business site for sidewalks vendors.

"Monas is one of the country's landmark buildings. So, please don't use this monument as a market," he said. (07)