Chairman of the PDI-P (PDIP) Megawati Soekarnoputri recalled when she walked along the beach with her father, the first President of the Republic of Indonesia Soekarno or Bung Karno.
This moment occurred decades ago, when he was looking for the right location to build a hotel owned by the country Hotel Inna Bali Beach.
He told this story while attending the inauguration of the Grand Inna Bali Beach Renovation and Revitalization as well as the Explanation and Presentation of the Construction of the Mayo Hospital and Drug Plants today, Monday, January 16.
Megawati was accompanied by the Secretary General of the PDIP DPP Hasto Kristiyanto. In addition, the Head of BRIN, Laksana Tri Handoko, Governor of Bali I Wayan Koster and Badung Regent I Nyoman Giri Prasta were also present.
In her speech, Megawati talked about the history of the Grand Inna Bali Beach Hotel in Sanur. Together with her brother, Guntur Soekarnoputra, Megawati was invited by Bung Karno to look for the right location to build the hotel.
Until finally, Bung Karno decided to build the hotel in Sanur. The reason, said Megawati, was that her father liked Bali because of its beauty and harmony.
In fact, he likes Bali so much he built the Tampak Siring Palace on the Island of the Gods. This is the first palace building the government has built.
"If you want to live here, make the Palace look Siring. The only one in this republic is a palace built by the Indonesian people themselves. The others are the so-called palaces that were built in the Dutch era," Megawati said in a written statement, Monday, January 16.
Returning to the Grand Inna Bali Beach Hotel, Megawati said the construction work was carried out by involving many artists. However, the work was later hidden after Soekarno stepped down and was replaced by the 2nd President of the Republic of Indonesia Suharto.
So, Megawati hopes that the renovation of the hotel will not hide the work of the artists. This message was conveyed to the Minister of SOEs, Erick Thohir, who was present at the location.
"The funny thing is that the artist's work is not allowed, instead he is covered. There is also a thing at the Hotel Indonesia called mozaic," said the 5th President of the Republic of Indonesia.
"I mean it's art, it should be taught again. But how come (New Order, red) didn't know that art matters were considered political matters. So don't let it happen again," continued Megawati.
Erick was also asked by Megawati to seriously renovate the hotel because of the many histories in it. Including Bung Karno's room which was safe from the 1993 fire incident.
"Pak Erick, please rebuild this hotel like it used to be in the Bung Karno era," he said.
Not only that, Megawati asked for the renovation of the Inna Grand Bali Beach Hotel to be aligned with the construction of an international standard hospital in the form of the Mayo Hospital in the United States and the construction of a special garden with various medicinal plants in the same location.
Responding to that, Erick Thohir explained that at the hotel complex a park would be built containing local medicinal plants. The National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) will be involved in the process.
As for the construction of the hospital, Erick said that cooperation will be carried out with the Mayo clinic in the US as a quality reference. It is hoped that the presence of local hospitals and medicinal plants can have an economic impact around the hotel.
Erick believes he can carry out Megawati's message. "God willing, we will take care of it. Bu Mega's message is not to let SOEs not become national bulwarks economically," said Erick at the same location.
Erick still remembers Megawati's message when she was appointed by President Jokowi to become minister of BUMN. At that time, he said, Megawati asked Erick to learn from octopuses.
"It's like an octopus. Healthy guitar is not a lot of leg. The healthy one has a big head, a little leg," said Erick.
"And that's what we did, in line with the transformation we carried out, the Ministry of SOEs from Rp. 13 trillion since I entered, now Rp. 125 trillion. The end of the year could be above Rp. 200 trillion. Our contribution to the country in the last year's COVID was Rp. 1.198 trillion or Rp. 68 trillion higher before COVID,” he concluded.
The English, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and French versions are automatically generated by the AI. So there may still be inaccuracies in translating, please always see Indonesian as our main language. (system supported by DigitalSiber.id)
