City agencies' thriftiness leaves much to be desired

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

While many taxpayers have to cut back on expenditures in their household budgets due to the price increases of basic commodities, city officials admitted that they could not help spending nearly all of the "non-physical development programs" funds.

The programs included such things as meetings at hotels and the bonuses for the city agency officials involved in drafting documents, organizing seminars or workshops as well as carrying out public service campaigns.

Such budget allocations can be found in all agencies within the city administration.

The estimated figure of the total funds for such activities in the 2005 budget reached Rp 4.3 trillion (around US$430 million) out of the total budget of Rp 14 trillion approved in January.

As of July, less than 30 percent of full budget had been used for concrete development.

A number of councillors previously refused to approve the city budget proposal after they learned that were far too many overly generous allotments for honorariums or bonuses for officials in addition to their normal salary/benefit packages.

But the councillors later approved the budget after a compromise with the city administration to save 25 percent from the "non-physical development programs" fund until the fiscal year ends in December.

As the Jakarta administration was now seeking approval from the City Council for Rp 248.5 billion in additional budget money, the officials have so far been unable to present detailed reports on how they planned to use the special funds.

"Governor Sutiyoso has sent around an order to all agencies to follow through on the agreement, but so far we have not received reports from them," said Assistant to the City Secretary for Financial Affairs Deden Haryadi at a hearing with the Council's Commission C for financial affairs on Monday.

Meanwhile, head of the City Bureau of Finance Syauki Yahya added that his agency was still confused about how it was going to save the budget money because the officials had to prepare various documents.

He also admitted that some activities of document-drafting by his staff members were carried out in hotels.

"I allow them to work in hotels so they don't get bored because they sometimes work the whole day on the documents," Syauki added.

Many officials from other agencies under the city administration also made similar statements that they found it difficult to use the special funds efficiently.

Previously, Commission C member Maria Hennie Longkeng revealed that the City Bureau of Finance had planned to hold the drafting of 88 documents in hotels this year, each meeting has a budget of Rp 20 million.

Her colleague Mohamad Mansur Syaerozi added that the city administration should be more thrifty and make sure that no more taxpayers' money goes to certain officials' pockets.

"It's not fair to give the officials extra bonuses just for doing their normal job ... They already have their salaries for that," he added.

Mansur said that without the detailed reports about the agreed 25-percent savings in each agency, there was no way for the Jakarta administration to obtain approval on the revised budget proposal.

"How could we approve more funds while the administration has not carried out its end of the agreement that had been made early this year," said Mansur, a councillor from the National Awakening Party (PKB).