BPK refuses to comment on state budget report
BPK refuses to comment on state budget report
JAKARTA (JP): The Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) has refused to
comment on the government accountability report on the
implementation of the 1999/2000 state budget, which may prompt
legislators to reject the budget report outright.
The result of the BPK audit was revealed on Monday during a
preliminary talk between the House of Representatives state
budget task force and Minister of Finance Rizal Ramli.
"BPK has no opinion because the government has not implemented
the necessary accounting system as demanded by the agency,"
legislator Amri Siregar said.
The possibility that legislators could reject the government
accountability report came as the House had earlier asked the
People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), the country's highest
legislature, to hold a special session to impeach embattled
President Abdurrahman Wahid.
The House task force is expected to conclude the deliberation
of the government state budget accountability report this week.
The April 1999-March 2000 state budget was approved by the
House during the administration of then president B.J. Habibie,
the hand-picked successor of former authoritarian ruler Soeharto,
but half of the budget period was carried out by Abdurrahman
after he won the presidential election in October 1999.
Starting last year, the state budget had been designed based
on a calender year system instead of the fiscal year system.
As had occurred in the past, the government only submitted the
budget report to the House to be debated some 16 months after the
budget period ended.
Rizal strongly appealed to the House not to reject the
government budget report.
He said that the weak accounting system and the lack of
transparency in the implementation of the 1999/2000 state budget
were merely due to the system inherited from the corrupt
administration of Soeharto.
But Rizal said that the new government was now committed to
improving the accounting system and to boost transparency in the
implementation of the state budget.
Meanwhile, director general of the state budget Anshari
Ritonga said that the government would adopt a more widely-
accepted accounting system starting in 2002.
He added that the government had proposed three new bills to
the House that would improve transparency in the implementation
of state budget and prevent abuse by government officials.
"We hope the House can immediately approve the bills," he
said.
Contrary to other legislators, Aberson Marle Sihaloho, a
senior member of the House budget task force, said that there was
no legal basis for the House to reject the government budget
report.
He agreed with Rizal that the current problem was a result of
"too much" authority given by the House to Soeharto in the past
in managing the state budget.
Aberson said that there would also be no reason for BPK to
issue a "no opinion" stance now, when it had not done so in the
past during the rule of Soeharto.
"The conditions for the 1999/2000 state budget were the same
as the conditions during the Soeharto era," he said.
"But let's just use this issue to improve transparency in the
future. Let's learn from the mistakes of the past," he added.
Aberson pointed out that in the future the budget
accountability report should be made within a six-month period
after the state budget had been implemented, not 16 months as it
used to be.
BPK said earlier this year that it had found 1,760 instances
of financial irregularities involving a total sum of more than Rp
11.8 trillion in the management of the state budget and state
companies in the fiscal years 1999/2000.
The irregularities included deviation from the law, non-
compliance with austerity and efficiency, deviation from set
objectives.(rei)