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)