City Council approves budget revision with 31% increase

JAKARTA (JP): The City Council approved on Monday a City Administration proposal to allocate a 31 percent increase to the city's 1999/2000 budget of Rp 2.816 trillion (US$391 million).

The budget revision will put the city's current budget at a total of Rp 3.694 trillion.

Almost 75 percent of the revised budget will be used to finance the city administration's routine expenditures amounting to Rp 2.740 trillion, leaving less than Rp 1 trillion for physical development projects.

The unequal allocation of the revised budget was strongly opposed by the National Mandate Party (PAN) faction.

"Such an unequal budget distribution indicates that the city administration programs have yet to touch the fate of the poor," said PAN faction spokesman M. Haim Mahadin.

"Therefore, the next 2000/2001 budget should pay more attention to the improvement of the people's welfare," Haim added.

The move however, was defended by the Indonesian Military/National Police (TNI) and Golkar factions.

Gafar Malik of the TNI faction said it was an understandable move to have an increased budget for the city's routine expenditures, because it would help deliver the city from the economic crisis.

"The greater distribution percentage of routine expenditures is important to sustain city administration services to residents," he said.

Similarly, Tadjus Sobirin of the Golkar faction said the greater allocation for routine expenditures was expected to be able to improve city administration services to the public.

Meanwhile, the Justice Party (PK) faction took notes on the proportional budget distribution allocated to the governor and his deputies.

"The governor and his deputies receive Rp 17 billion, while hospitals receive some Rp 15 billion to Rp 30 billion and the social welfare sector only Rp 5 million," PK faction spokesman Dani Anwar said.

Despite disagreements over the budget, all council factions called on the city administration to improve the performance of city-owned companies, especially ones which had failed to deliver a profit.

Most factions also asked the city administration to cancel the water management agreement between the city-owned tap water company PAM Jaya and its foreign investors.

"Since the water management agreement was signed in February last year, there have been no contributions from PAM Jaya.

"Instead, the city administration has had to compensate for its operational costs to investors. (05)