publish time

17/08/2024

author name Arab Times

publish time

17/08/2024

Indonesian President Joko Widodo, (center), and Defense Minister and president-elect Prabowo Subianto, (second left), salute during the ceremony marking Indonesia's 79th anniversary of independence at the new presidential palace in its future capital of Nusantara, a city still under construction on the island of Borneo on Aug 17. (AP)

PENAJAM PASER UTARA, Indonesia, Aug 17, (AP): Indonesia marked 79 years of independence on Saturday with a ceremony in the unfinished future capital of Nusantara, which was planned to relieve pressure on Jakarta but whose construction has lagged behind schedule.
Hundreds of officials and invited guests wearing the traditional clothes of Indonesian tribes gathered on a stretch of grass amid the ongoing construction of government buildings and and view of construction cranes in the center of the Nusantara city.
Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo and Cabinet ministers attended the Independence Day ceremony at the new Presidential Palace, built in the shape of the mythical eagle-winged protector figure Garuda.
The celebration was initially planned to inaugurate Nusantara as the country's new capital, but with construction behind schedule it's not clear when the transfer will take place.
Widodo said earlier in the week that 8,000 guests would be invited, but the number was later reduced to 1,300 because adequate infrastructure in not place.
The celebration at the new State Palace on the island of Borneo was held simultaneously with a celebration at the Merdeka Palace in Jakarta that was attended by Vice President Ma'ruf Amin.
Widodo began working at the new presidential palace in Nusantara in late July and held his first Cabinet meeting there on Tuesday.
More than 5,000 officers from Indonesia’s police and military were deployed for the ceremony and 76 honorary flag-bearers marched behind the national red-and-white banner.
Jakarta, with about 10 million people in the city limits and three times that number in the greater metropolitan area, floods regularly and its streets are so clogged that congestion costs the economy ann estimated $4.5 billion a year.
The air and groundwater in the old capital, on the northwestern coast of the Java island, are heavily polluted, and it has been described as the world’s most rapidly sinking city. It is estimated that one-third of the city could be submerged by 2050, because of uncontrolled ground water extraction, as well as the rise of the Java Sea due to climate change.