Accountants refuse KPU's job

Suherdjoko, The Jakarta Post, Semarang

Noted public accountants have reportedly refused to audit campaign funds of political parties, a member of the General Election Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu), Didik Supriyanto, said on Saturday.

He said the auditors were concerned about possible questions from Panwaslu, the General Election Commission (KPU) and non- governmental organizations.

"As you can see, there are still no reputable public accountants appointed by the KPU to audit the parties' accounts," he said.

He said, so far, none of the 24 political parties contesting the April 5 general elections had reported the use of funds during the three-week campaign period between March 11 and April 1.

Citing Article 79 of Election Law No. 12/2003, Didik said the political parties are given 97 days after the election day on April 5 to get their campaign funds audited by public accountants.

During the first 60 days, parties must present reports of all of their campaign funds to auditors that later hand them over to the KPU.

"But the long time given to the political parties gives the opportunity for manipulation of data," Didik said.

Under the law, parties are obliged to report their accounts one week before the campaigning starts. But in fact, most of them had ignored the regulation.

Didik said the Panwaslu has so far found no irregularities in the use of party campaign funds.

"It is not because there are no parties that have reported their election funds. Even if we are pro-active in finding possible violations, it would be useless because they still have no data," Didik said.

He said the Panwaslu was not asked by the KPU to work together to enact regulations to control possible irregularities in campaign funds by political parties. "But if there are violations, we should follow it up," he complained.

According to the Indonesia Corruption Watchdog, parties resorted to vote buying to lure supporters during the campaign period.

It said the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) allocated Rp 100 billion (US$11.6 million) to finance its campaign. Of that amount, Rp 1.89 billion was spent on advertising. Golkar is said to have spent Rp 640 million on advertising. Of the 24 parties contending the legislative election, at least 11 had no funds for advertising.