Ryaas: Hard to keep Jakarta as capital city

Presidential Advisory Council member Ryaas Rasyid says that Jakarta is becoming more difficult to keep as the capital city and suggests moving the capital somewhere else.

“A capital city does not need mining and other industries. Instead it needs seclusion for the government  to work with ease,” Ryaas said during a seminar, titled “The Country’s Capital, Challenges and Hopes” in Makassar, South Sulawesi, on Monday.

Ryaas said that Jakarta had become central to nearly everything, but given its complexities the capital should immediately be moved to another area.

There are two options, according to Ryass, either to move the capital city or the government offices to another province.

“Either somewhere in or off Java. South Sulawesi has been the first to be nominated, and may prompt other provinces to nominate [themselves] as well,” he said, as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

“We must not be blinded by a concept based on history that Jakarta should be kept as the capital city,” he added.

Perhaps Sukarno decided to locate the central government in Jakarta based on Indonesia’s hard-earned triumph over the Netherlands in the past, Ryass said.

South Sulawesi’s prospects also depend on further examinations of urban planning and other requirements. The government itself, he said, needs to prepare a preliminary budget both for the country and outside of the country.

Noted businessman Tanri Abeng said that if South Sulawesi wants to nominate itself as the new capital city, it should start promoting multi-cultural perspectives in the city’s life.

Tanri alluded to nagging tensions between different ethnic groups in the city.

“That [anti-multiculturalism] culture needs to be changed. If not, how can we suggest the city to host the capital should its culture fail to accommodate different ethnic groups,” he said.