Budget talk should be open: NGOs

Ahmad Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Transparency, including opening up council meetings to the public, must be improved to rid the Jakarta City Council of corruption, non-governmental organization says.

"There must be certain deals in the meetings and corruption and collusion practices among the councillors and officials," Urban Poor Consortium (UP) chairwoman Wardah Hafidz told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

Wardah said the closed-door meetings aimed to avoid public monitoring in a range of areas, including the budget.

Besides deals on the projects, the councillors and the officials would use the closed-door meetings to negotiate how much money they would receive.

"They would be ashamed if they discussed it in an open meeting," Wardah said.

Among the issues discussed in the meetings were the allocation of Rp 91.6 billion for the city's 85 councillors, Rp 9 billion for Governor Sutiyoso and Rp 6 billion for Deputy Governor Fauzi Bowo.

Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH) urban division head Tubagus Haryo Karbyanto supported Wardah's opinion that the meetings were a forum for corruption between councillors and officials.

"Press and non-governmental organizations have criticized the councillors for conducting closed-door meetings involving the use of public money, but they were undeterred," Tubagus said.

He said the public no longer trusted the councillors and the officials as their voices were never listened to although the councillors often claimed they were the people's representatives.

Dozens of non-governmental organizations, including the LBH and UPC, sued the administration and council for the lack of transparency during the drafting of the city budget for 2000.

But the Jakarta Administrative Court rejected the lawsuit, saying it could only rule on the government, not the council.

Separately, councillor Ridlo Kamaludin of the United Development Party said not all the issues could be discussed in public.

"Yes, there are things which can not be disclosed to the public. But we finally reported the results of the meeting in an open plenary session."

Ridlo said the closed-door meetings were not used for corruption and collusion between the councillors and officials.

The 2003 budget of Rp 11.06 trillion is expected to be approved by the council by the end of the month.