Bandung employees wait for salary

BANDUNG: Some 331 contract (non-permanent) employees with the West Java administration have not received their salaries for the past two months.

One of the employees, Ade, who works as a security guard, could not explain when asked why the salaries had not been paid.

"This is our only source of income," he remarked.

A source with the administration's finance section said the employees had not been paid since their contracts had expired two months ago and that thus far no extension of their contracts had been proposed.

Governor R. Nuriana, when pressed by journalists over the matter, said he would immediately instruct his staff to pay the contract employees' wages.

He noted that his administration still required the services of the non-permanent employees, particularly those working as cleaners, gardeners and security guards.

Nuriana added as a result of regional autonomy, his administration was being forced to employ a large number of civil servants by the central government who now had to be paid by the provincial government.

He argued that the 23,000 civil servants now employed by his administration far exceeded the actual number required and that the number of employees had risen by 40 percent over recent months.

Nuriana said he would submit a claim to the central government for an increased subvention due to the large number of civil servants transferred to his administration, particularly as the funds required for the payment of their wages exceeded the general budget allocation of Rp 500 billion.(25)