Administration denies bribing Bekasi councilors

Administration denies bribing Bekasi councilors

JAKARTA (JP): The city administration denied on Wednesday it
bribed Bekasi councilors Rp 1 million (US$147) each to retract
their demand for the closure of the 108-hectare Bantar Gebang
dump site in Bekasi.

City Secretary Fauzi Bowo said the administration had not
given any money to the 17 Bekasi councilors, who are members of a
feasibility study team on garbage management.

"We have not spent the city administration's money on such a
thing," Fauzi said.

He revealed, however, that the money might have come from the
city's sanitary agency.

" The sanitary agency has its own budget for operational
expenditures. We'll seek verification on the alleged bribery with
the sanitary agency," he said.

Last month the 17 councilors visited a garbage dump site in
Surabaya, East Java, for a comparative study on garbage
management.

It is alleged that during the visit a Bekasi mayoralty
official left envelopes containing money in the councilors' hotel
rooms.

Some of the councilors returned the money when they knew that
the money was from the city administration. Bekasi mayor Nonon
Sonthanie reportedly asked Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso to finance
the councilors' trip to Surabaya.

Bekasi councilors earlier asked the city administration to
close the dump, saying that it had polluted the air and water
leading to health problems such as respiratory diseases and skin
infections. In the meeting between the 17 councilors and the
Jakarta administration on Sept. 30, the administration agreed to
close the dump from next month.

But the Jakarta administration appears likely to cancel the
plan after learning that the development of a substitute garbage
dump site in Ciangir, Tangerang, was not feasible.

"It will only move the same problem from Bekasi to Tangerang,"
Governor Sutiyoso said last month.

The Jakarta administration then decided to allocate Rp 10
billion for renovations at the Bantar Gebang dump site, which has
been designed to accommodate Jakarta's 23,000 cubic meters of
garbage per day until 2004.

Meanwhile, Jakarta councilor Tjuk Sudono of the National
Mandate Party (PAN) regretted "the bribery" if it really had
happened.

"In such an era of transparency, unclear allocation of the
city's budget should not be tolerated anymore," Tjuk, who is a
member of the city council's commission D for development
affairs, said on Wednesday.

He said the council suspected that the city administration had
"marked up" the budget for the Rp 10 billion spending allocated
for the repair of the garbage dump.

"It should not that large. We'll ask the city administration
for a clarification," he said.

In a related development, the city administration is
considering dumping garbage in areas designated as sites for a
reclamation project in North Jakarta, the city's Development
Planning Board head Bambang Sungkono said on Wednesday.

"Several developed countries, such as Japan, have used their
garbage for reclamation," Bambang said.

He said several city officials would soon leave for Japan for
a feasibility study. (jun)