Staying at the palace

Staying at the palace

One of the initial statements from president-elect Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) was very impressive, though simple and
realistic.

A palace is the right place for the head of state. We fully
agree with the headline in The Jakarta Post on Sept. 25, Security
concerns make SBY consider palace home. Due to security reasons,
most Indonesian presidents have chosen a residential area for
their home. For the first year, they could cope with the
surrounding community, however they then began to feel uneasy,
uncomfortable and unsafe, and got wrong advice from their inner
circle, and more houses and areas surrounding their homes were
purchased and turned into guardhouses.

In term of expense, certainly this requires huge additional
expenses, and more personnel have to be deployed, extra utility
funds must be provided to maintain the presidential complex and
new security systems.

There is a great advantage for SBY staying at the State
Palace. He can work more productively and put in longer working
hours, even up to 24 hours a day. Then the palace would be
serving its real function.

This small new step -- a very logical idea -- should be
followed by all of SBY's subordinates. They must spend most of
their time at their assigned government offices. By applying this
cost-reduction strategy, I believe that the new Cabinet's
expenses can be significantly reduced.

PAULUS GUNAWAN
Jakarta