•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   
•    EYEWITNESS   

After evaluating the needs of the House of Representatives for a new office tower, the government proposed a more budget-friendly plan that combines raising a new building along with renovating the existing building.

“With our calculation, the [36-story plan] could be reduced into only 26 stories,” Public Works Minister Djoko Kirmanto said at the Presidential Palace on Monday.

“The budget also could be reduced. With the maximum price for building costs in Jakarta, it could be lowered to only Rp 777 billion [$91 million], from the previous plan of Rp 1.1 trillion.”

Djoko said the revision took into consideration that the old building could still be used after some renovation.

The ministry’s evaluation of the project was done at House Speaker Marzuki Alie’s request in response to the massive public outcry against the plan.

The evaluation found that the old legislative building was no longer was sufficient to accommodate House activity.

The report proposed that House members use the new building while the House Secretariat and other bodies such as the Steering Committee and Budget Committee keep using the old building, which could also continue to be used for House commission meetings.

The new proposal also jettisons some of the amenities that drew public ire, such as a swimming pool, but will include less-controversial facilities such as a food court and library.

“Each member would get a room of 16 square meters, it is not too wide,” Djoko said.

Though the proposal sets a limit of Rp 800 billion on construction of the new tower, Djoko said the actual cost could come down further through the bidding process.

He said the revision had already received a positive response from Marzuki.

The speaker said that if the Public Works Ministry had concluded that a 26-story building was sufficient, then he would accept the plan.

Previously, Marzuki said the House might only need something similar to the existing Nusantara I, which is 24 stories tall.

“We will bring the evaluation and recommendations to the Household Affairs Committee [BURT],” he said on Monday.

However, he warned that any recommendations would first have to be discussed within BURT, which does not necessarily have to agree to them.

Regarding the recommendation that the House continue to use Nusantara I for some functions, Marzuki said that the opinions of lawmakers had to be considered as well.

He cited remarks made on Monday by Golkar Party’s Nudirman Munir that lawmakers needed more room to work.

During a plenary session, Nudirman, deputy chairman of the House Ethics Council, said that life in the old building consisted largely of waiting in line. “To sit we should queue, to get into the elevators we queue, at the rest rooms [we] queue, for achieving, queue,” he said.

Meanwhile, Totok Daryanto, from the National Mandate Party (PAN), said lawmakers should listen to the public opinion on the matter. He clarified that his party was not siding with the public merely in the hopes of winning support, but because it believed that there hadn’t been enough communication with constituents regarding the plans.

Djoko on Monday added that in near future, the president would be signing a new regulation requiring thorough audits on new state buildings. He said the regulation had not arisen out of the controversy surrounding the new House tower. “The draft has been finished, it is now being processed at the cabinet secretariat for legal wording to be checked.”

There are eight other state bodies with building plans involving budgets of Rp 100 billion or more, including the Supreme Court, Finance Ministry, Supreme Audit Agency (BPK), Attorney General’s Office and the Central Statistics Agency (BPS).