Millions of Rupiah Money belonging to School Caretakers in Solo Damaged by Termites

Samin memperlihatkan uang tabungannya yang rusak akibat dimakan rayap di Solo, Selasa (13/9/2022). ANTARA/Aris Wasita

SOLO - Tens of millions of rupiah belonging to a school guard at Lojiwetan State Elementary School Solo which was saved in a piggy bank for about 2.5 years was damaged by termites.

"Initially, I wanted to register for Hajj with my wife and children. I got some sustenance little by little. I put it in a can. It's been savings since before the COVID-19 pandemic", said Lojiwetan State Elementary School Solo keeper Samin in Solo, as reported by ANTARA, Tuesday, September 13.

However, three days ago this 53-year-old man had a bad feeling about the money he saved. Therefore, he asked his wife to immediately open and calculate the results of the savings.

Just this morning his wife would open the piggy bank. However, when it is about to be opened, termites appear from inside the piggy bank. By Samin, the piggy bank was immediately opened and he saw that the IDR 50,000 and IDR 100,000 bills had been damaged by termites.

"I happen to have two piggy banks, one is still intact because it's a new piggy bank. If the damaged one is an old one, but because it's full, I use a new one. If one contains IDR 49.8 million, the possibility of this broken piggy bank is more than that, because it has more content", he said.

He said the savings came from selling his wife in the school canteen. In addition, every time you get sustenance, a portion is always set aside for savings.

"Sometimes you get IDR 100-IDR 200 thousand, every month the teacher gives IDR 300 thousand from me to make tea, I put it in there. My mother sells it, there is an excess, I put it in there", he said.

As a result of the incident, he reported to Bank Indonesia (BI) and hoped to get replacement money from the damaged money.

Related to this, the Head of the Surakarta Bank Indonesia (BI) Representative Office, Nugroho Joko Prastowo, said that BI would replace damaged money as long as it met the requirements, one of which was a minimum size of 2/3 of the full size.

According to him, money lost due to being eaten by termites cannot be replaced, but if money is damaged due to being eaten by termites, it can still be replaced as long as it meets the requirements.

"Why is that, because if the minimum is half of it there could be a double claim. Next, if the money is separated, the first step that must be done is to arrange sheet by sheet whether this money is still 2/3 in size or not. The difficult task is to arrange the sheets separate little ones", he said.

In addition, he continued, the owner must arrange the money, because it was the one who saved from the start.

"We didn't do it, because later there would be a difference from the initial time, so only the person concerned compiled it. What has been compiled is brought to BI, then we check and exchange a new one (as long as it meets the requirements)", he said.