Maluku Restores Banda Neira Mini Palace To Become Presidential Palace In Eastern Indonesia

Head of the Maluku Tourism Office, Marcus J Pattinama. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - The Maluku Provincial Government is preparing the restoration of the Mini Palace in Banda Neira to become a priority for tourism development in 2022. Through this step, the cultural heritage can become a presidential palace like the Bogor Palace, in eastern Indonesia.

"Currently, detailed engineering design (DED) is being carried out for the mini palace in Banda and it will be designated as the presidential palace of the Republic of Indonesia or the state palace," said Head of the Maluku Tourism Office, Marcus J Pattinama, quoted by Antara, Sunday, February 27.

Based on data from the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Mini Palace Complex is a cultural heritage left by the colonial VOC which concentrated the government in Maluku during the spice monopoly. The mini palace is a former VOC government office in Banda Naira which was formerly occupied by a VOC governor, before being moved to Batavia (Jakarta).

Marcus explained that Maluku Governor Murad Ismail had ordered him to submit a letter of application to President Joko Widodo in 2020 and it had been agreed that the Banda Mini Palace would become the Presidential Palace.

Marcus said that the restoration of the Banda mini palace was one of the results of the 2022 Maluku tourism development coordination meeting which was held in the city of Saumlaki, February 25-26 2022. The restoration will restore the historic site by taking into account the element of authenticity.

"The big design of Maluku tourism development is to determine Banda as the development of Maluku's tourism locomotive. Meanwhile, other tourism destinations in Maluku are tourism wagons," he said.

Marcus stated that developing tourism in Banda would provide benefits to other tourism destinations in Maluku.

The DED preparation process is carried out by the PUPR Service and is targeted to be completed in March. Furthermore, in April, he will bring all the heads of the Tourism Office of 11 Regencies and Cities in Maluku to deliver the results to the Coordinating Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Investment (Kemenko Marvest).

"After that, we plan to meet the Minister of Investment and BKPM to collaborate. Regarding the budget, we will see after the DED. After the DED, we will convey it to the ministry, because this program is being pushed by the Coordinating Ministry for Investment because Maluku is not included in the category of super priority areas. ," he said.