Boat purchases by local govts protested
Boat purchases by local govts protested
A. Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
A non-governmental organization, the Indonesian Human Rights
Monitor (Imparsial), urged the government on Monday to cancel the
planned purchase of boats worth Rp 130 billion (US$15 million) by
six local administrations for the Indonesian Navy.
"The planned purchases are not being carried out
transparently. Many of the purchases are being made without a
public tender," Imparsial executive director Munir told
reporters.
Munir said the purchase of vessels for the Navy should be the
responsibility of the central government and paid for out of the
state budget, not by local administrations using local budgets.
He also criticized the Navy for acting as "a salesman" for the
boat producers, and for urging the administrations to buy the
boats in exchange for promises of better maritime security.
"We can see that thus far the boat purchases are at the
initiative of the Navy rather than the local administrations," he
said.
At least five provinces and one regency have agreed to buy
boats for the Navy, namely, Riau, Bangka-Belitung, Banten, Papua
and Maluku provinces, and Kutai Kertanegara regency.
Munir said that although the local administrations had agreed
to buy the vessels, the funds required had never been mentioned
in their local budgets.
He said that as a consequence of the planned purchases of the
naval vessels, the budget allocations for the education and
health sectors would decrease, as could already be seen from the
budgets of Riau and Bangka-Belitung provinces.
"It's sad that a poor province like Bangka-Belitung, which is
unable to allocate more than five percent of its budget on
education and health, now has to start buying boats for the
Navy," he said.
He said the planned boat purchases by local administrations
was similar to the decision by the Jakarta administration to
cough up Rp 29 billion to buy intelligence-gathering equipment
for the Jakarta Military Command.
Since local autonomy was introduced in 2001, some local
administrations have provided money out of their budgets for
improvements to security in their respective jurisdictions.
The moves have raised concerns among analysts, who fear that
such practices would lead the military to be loyal to provinces
and regencies that purchage those defense equipment only at the
expense of national security as a whole.
The Navy said earlier that many of its warships were not sea-
worthy, making it almost impossible for them to guard country's
vast sea from foreign fishing boats.
The Navy, Police and Army often complain that their budgets
are insufficient to meet their needs, and ask local
administrations to help purchase security equipment in exchange
for better security arrangements in their respective areas.