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Surakarta museum reopens
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Cultural preservation – A visitor takes a picture of exhibits at the Radya Pustaka Museum in Surakarta, Central Java, on Sunday. The oldest museum in Indonesia was closed for five days from last Monday due to financial difficulties, but reopened on Saturday. (thejakartapost.com/Ganug Nugroho Adi)
The Radya Pustaka Museum in Surakarta, Central Java, reopened on Saturday at the request of Surakarta Mayor FX Hadi Rudyatmo.
The museum was closed for five days from last Monday due to financial difficulties. The Surakarta administration promised on Saturday that it would disburse a Rp 300 million (US$22,727) grant it had promised to the museum this week.
The mayor, more commonly known as Rudy, asserted the Surakarta administration would be responsible for the continuity of the museum and that the grant fund would be disbursed soon.
Rudy said the 300 million fund could be disbursed without having to wait for the Radya Pustaka Museum to become a corporate body as required by a newly passed bylaw.
“I have given a disposition letter [on the grant disbursement] to the Culture and Tourism Agency and the Asset and Financial Revenue and Management Office. I have asked that the grant fund be immediately disbursed,” said Rudy on Sunday.
The Surakarta mayor said the disbursement of the museum fund would be based on Law No. 11/2010 on culture preservation. Article 98 of the 2010 Culture Preservation Law stipulates that the central government and provincial and local administrations are required to preserve and protect cultural heritage objects, sites and museums.
“The cultural preservation budget can come from the State Budget [APBN] and local budgets [APBD] at provincial and mayoral levels. Because the APBN and the APBD Central Java do not allocate funds for the Radya Pustaka Museum, the APBD Surakarta will cover its budget,” said Rudy.
Meanwhile, a Radya Pustaka employee, Fajar Suryanto, said the employee strike that forced the museum to close was not because of a delay in the payment of employees’ salaries, but only to urge the Surakarta administration to give more serious attention to the oldest museum in Indonesia.
“The closing of the museum had nothing to do with delayed payments of our salaries. If it was related with salaries, we could have refused to go to work since January. What we did was only to make the Surakarta administration care more about this museum,” said Fajar.
As reported earlier, Radya Pustaka Museum employees have not yet received their salaries since January.
Fajar said the Surakarta administration should not have waited until the strike happened to express its commitment to the museum, including the disbursement of the grant fund, as the preservation of cultural heritage objects, sites and museums was mandated by law.
“The museum closure was very ironic because the Surakarta administration just received an award as the best heritage conservation city. We hope that after this incident, the Surakarta administration is more serious in handling the Radya Pustaka Museum,” said Fajar.
The Indonesia Art Institute graduate also said he hoped the reopening of the museum was not aimed at merely boosting the good image of the Surakarta administration. Instead, he said, the Surakarta administration must be brave enough to admit that it had not given enough attention to Radya Pustaka in the past.
“There are still a lot of work the Surakarta administration must do, such as handling the management of the museum’s programs, human resources and facility procurement,” said Fajar, who is also a non-permanent staff member at the Central Java Cultural Heritage Preservation Agency (BPCB).
Around 200 people visited the Radya Pustaka Museum over the two days after it was reopened on Saturday. They included school student tour groups from Karanganyar, Purwokerto and Surakarta.
Separately, Radya Pustaka Museum committee secretary St Wiyono confirmed that the reopening of the museum was based on the order of the Surakarta mayor, adding that the Surakarta administration and the museum committee would together seek solutions to the museum’s funding problems.
“While waiting for the disbursement of the 300 million grant, the committee and the Surakarta administration will discuss museum financing issues on Tuesday. We will discuss potential sources for, at least, the operational funds of the museum,” said Wiyono. (ebf)
