Aceh council accepts governor's report

Aceh council accepts governor's report

Nani Afrida, The Jakarta Post/Banda Aceh

Defying public protest, 54 of the total 55 councillors of
Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam council accepted on Saturday the
accountability report of the expenditure of Aceh's 2003 budget.

The acceptance paves the way for embattled Aceh Governor
Abdullah Puteh, who is a graft suspect, to continue as governor
until 2005, when his term comes to an end.

Four factions of the council fully accepted the accountability
report during a plenary meeting held at the Aceh council. They
were the Reform Alliance faction, Golkar faction, United
Development Party faction and the Indonesian Democratic Party of
Struggle faction.

Only two factions accepted the report with conditions, namely
the Indonesian Military/police faction and the National Mandate
Party faction (PAN). Bustami Puteh from the PAN faction, for
example, accepted the report, but suggested the governor
investigate some development projects and investments that could
be riddled with corruption, including the construction of the
Deudap Island ship and the spending of general election funds.

The only dissenting opinion came from M. Nasir Djamil, a
member of the Reform Alliance faction. Djamil, a councillor from
the Prosperous Justice Party, said the Aceh governor had failed
to improve the welfare of Aceh people during his term, so that
his accountability report had to be rejected. The number of poor
and unemployed people, for example, had not reduced between 2002
and 2003, but had been on the rise, he said, citing a figure
released recently by a non-governmental organization (NGO).

Earlier, Akhirudin from the NGO Anticorruption Solidarity
urged councilors to reject the accountability report. Last year,
Aceh's poor comprised 40.39 percent of the population, up from
33.84 percent in 2002, he said. The population of Aceh is four
million. Similarly, the number of unemployed people skyrocketed
to 417,930 last year, from 363,398 a year earlier. The
discouraging figures came amid increases to Aceh's budget, he
said. Last year's provincial budget amounted to Rp 1.42 trillion
(US$151 million), slightly higher than the budget in 2002, which
was Rp 1.38 trillion.

Akhirudin also lashed out at the government for allocating
education funds ineffectively. He said the government had used Rp
12 billion allocated for education to finance Aceh Cultural Week
IV, which started on Aug. 19.

"The government should have allocated the money to finance the
restoration of many schools in Aceh, which were damaged when they
were set on fire, following the imposition of martial law in the
province. The schools are far more important than the cultural
fiesta," said Akhirudin. Abdullah Puteh ignored the accusations,
saying that those views did not represent the majority of Aceh
people.

Abdullah is accused of playing a central role in an alleged
markup in the purchase of a helicopter by the Aceh administration
in 2002, which reportedly cost the state Rp 4 billion (US$5.4
million) in losses.

He is currently facing questioning by the Corruption
Eradication Commission (KPK).