The trouble in managing heritage buildings in Indonesia

By: Matheos Viktor Messakh

As the executive director of the National Archive Building Foundation, Tamalia Alisjahbana has her own perspective on how to preserve heritage buildings in the country.
Tamalia criticized the management of heritage buildings in Indonesia, which is the responsibility of the Finance Ministry and is ruled by the Financial Law.
"With that law, heritage buildings are purely considered to be commercial assets. But a heritage is not purely a commercial asset, it is also a historical, cultural asset."
"So it is not suitable if you look at a heritage building only as a commercial asset."
The daughter of writer Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana said the way the government managed heritage buildings had made some donors withdraw their donations.
"If it's a modern building, you can't let a third party rent the building for a long period. But if it's a heritage building, you've got to have a long period for the management," she said.
"It's very hard to raise the money. Who would donate money to you if you only run the management for five years?"
Tamalia said that since the country also has a law on heritage buildings, a permit for a third party to manage a heritage building should come from the ministry of tourism and culture.
She said the Finance Ministry should sit down with the Tourism and Culture Ministry to draft a regulation.
"This has never been done. So it's all now under the Finance Ministry. They don't have the expertise and they don't have the time. They have so many important things to do," Tamalia said.
"Heritage buildings are not at the top of their priority list. Heritage buildings are something new for the Finance Ministry. They really need to work with the Tourism and Culture Ministry if we are going to save our heritage buildings."
As with the National Archive Building, Tamalia said that the foundation could manage to preserve buildings.
"We are the only self-sustained museum and we are proud of that," she said, adding that today most governments aim for public-private partnerships to maintain heritage buildings.
"It's too heavy for the government if they don't have that kind of cooperation. Governments all over the world experience this problem.
"It's actually very good that we are doing this. First of all, it helps the government to save money for more important thing and secondly, they often don't have the people with the knowledge and expertise," Tamalia said .
Although admitting that the foundation's earnings had been low this year, the foundation has managed to maintain the National Archive Building with sinking funds.
"We have been putting aside money every year. Now we have the money and we are negotiating with the contractors to renovate the main building."

Source: The Jakarta Post , Jakarta, Tuesday, 07/15/2008