Mandar Museum, Neglected Historic Site

Does West Sulawesi have a museum? the answer is yes, there is. Museum in Sulbar is located on Jl. Raden Suradi No. 17, Kelurahan Pangali-ali, District Banggae, Majene. About three hours from Mamuju, the capital of West Sulawesi. The place where the historic objects are stored is called Mandar Museum. The museum stores about 1,304 collections, including geological, geographical, biological, ethnographical, archaeological, historical, numismatic, heraldic, philological, ceramic, artistic, and technological collections. The collection is a form of war equipment, royal furniture, pedigree (Lontar, red) Mandar kingdom first to the end. But the condition of the museum built since the colonial era is now apprehensive. The roof of the museum is fragile until rainwater easily seeps into the building. A number of glass that closed the window of the room also broke. "Every time it rains heavily, surely some of the floor of the museum was inundated with water," said Undin, a resident of Majene who often visited the museum. These conditions make the museum deserted visitors. During this local visitors that most students spend Rp 3 thousand to enter the museum. While foreign tourists for Rp 20 thousand. Head of Timbo-timbo Environment Syamsuddin hopes that the Government and the Majene Parliament should pay attention to the condition of the museum. Because the museum is not maintained not only makes people averse to visit, but also can damage the collection of historic stored in it. "This museum is the only one in West Sulawesi, so its maintenance must be maximized," he said. "What I am surprised is that the budget for the renovations that are disbursed reaches hundreds of millions of rupiah." When confirmed, Head of Culture Development Department of Culture and Tourism (Disbudpar) Majene Aminuddin denied the museum has got a large maintenance budget. During this time, said Amiruddin, the museum is only injected funds from the Government Majene of Rp 21 million each year. It was partly used to pay the salaries of the museum officials. Aminuddin admitted that the condition occurred because the Majene government has no expense to finance the museum. That is why the central government is expected to be involved. "Actually we are trying to budget hundreds of millions but the local treasury does not have the ability to do that," he said. According to Amiruddin, the Majene government has proposed a revitalization budget of Rp 9.9 billion to the central government in 2017. Majene also requested the budget to rehabilitate Rp 29 billion. "But until now not yet bury." (ASR)