Ultimatums are only good only if you're prepared to go all the way. Otherwise you begin to look like you're spewing only garbage.
So what's happened to President SBY's ultimatum to Bandung Governor Dada Rosada to clean up the city's rubbish problem or have his job of cleaning the rubbish taken away from him, as chronicled in a previous post?
Fans of the President will recall the tough talk on Saturday when, disgusted by the stench and piling mounds of rubbish lining the route of his cereminial exercise, he issued the ultimatum to the governor to clean up his act by Tuesday, yesterday.
Well, the day has come and gone but the only action that the President seems to have taken was to send Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar to Bandung.
The Minister was appropriately disgusted and would have given Dada some blah blah, except that the governor was't in his office when the minister visited. (Double take: a Minister visits a governor and, in this age of handphones, the governor's not there?!?).
So to sum up the Government's action to date on Bandung's garbage situation:
1. SBY talks tough, issues ultimatum but does nothing
2. Rachmat Witeolar talks tough, can't find governor and leaves
Net result: nothing, Bandung is still reeking from grabage.
