Mayor’s command post: Two civil servants wait in a tent erected to serve as an office for Central Jakarta Mayor Sylviana Murni at National Monument Park on Thursday. (JP/Agnes Winarti)

Central Jakarta Mayor Sylviana Murni has snapped into action in the past few days, cleaning up National Monument (Monas) Park, replanting grass and repaving pedestrian walkways, a week after she was berated for incompetence following an inspection of the park by Jakarta’s governor.

After being publicly embarrassed by Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo for failing to maintain the park, the mayor, who is known colloquially as 1981 None (Miss) Jakarta beauty pageant Sylvi, promptly assigned her subordinates to set up a tent to serve as a temporary office in the park Tuesday.

“We only have two weeks to restore the park,” Sylvi said, referring to the governor’s deadline set last Thursday.

Fauzi told Sylviana he was tired of empty promises about her plans to clean up the park. “Present your plan to someone else. I am tired of it,” Fauzi said.

He warned that he would make a random inspection of the park, and threatened her with demotion should he not be satisfied with what he saw.

The Jakarta Post observed Thursday that the monument had been given a major face-lift.

“A major restoration is underway; the pedestrian walkways have been improved, the gutters have been dredged and even the dead grass has been replaced with new grass,” said one of the park gardeners.

“Madam mayor was here on Tuesday. She also came here on Wednesday, from around 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. to inspect the park with her subordinates.”

“But then they all returned to their office.”

The mayor also conducted a clean up of the park. She has said her team will place 200 garbage bins in the park and dig 1,000 biopores — holes bored into the ground to absorb rainfall and prevent flooding — within its 80 hectares.

When asked whether she intended to work from the tent, Sylviana said, “I definitely will drop by.”

“The tent is useful to avoid being caught in the rain during my inspections.”

She said the tent served as a meeting room for her and the officials of 13 agencies including the park, sanitation, husbandry, forestry, tourism and culture and public order agencies.

Two other tents were also erected in the park Thursday. The tents are each furnished with a large TV set, a fan, a water dispenser, long tables and benches.

A park officer said the two tents belonged to Harianto Boejuri, head of the city’s public order agency.

Two civil servants from the city’s social agency were seen carrying a blue carpet into one of the tents.

“Madam Mayor asked us to replace the white floor of the tent with  blue carpet so that it won’t look so dirty,” the officer said.

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