Bandung employees wait for salary

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)