City Council asked to cancel building plan

City Council asked to cancel building plan

Annastashya Emmanuelle, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

JAKARTA (JP): Some 50 demonstrators grouped under the Jakarta
Residents Forum (Fakta) staged a protest at City Council on
Friday, demanding the council cancel its plan to build a new
council building.

"Building a new office is not as urgent as the provision of
decent housing facilities or the increase in salary of the city's
teachers. It would be better if the Rp 30.5 billion (roughly US$3
million) was allocated for those purposes," chairman of the forum
Azas Tigor Nainggolan told The Jakarta Post.

Tigor suggested city councillors should improve their
performance before asking for more facilities, which would cost
the city budget heavily.

The new building, to be equipped with a sauna and fitness
center, was revealed by the council's deputy chairman, Tarmidi
Suhardjo, on Tuesday, and immediately triggered controversy among
various local nongovernmental organization.

Tigor said a new building was not in urgent need for the
councillors as the current building was still feasible for the
council's 85 members.

The protesters sang and staged a pantomime depicting
councillors who turned down people who come to the council to
convey their concerns.

The demonstrators also handed over bottles of shampoo, pails
and brushes to the council's secretariat as a token to show that
the councillors should clean up their "dirty thoughts".

The shampoo, they said, was for councillors to use to wash
their heads and clear their minds from their ludicrous way to
spend public money, while the buckets and brushes were intended
for the councillors to use to clean the toilets at the city
councillors office as an alternative to sport.

However, they were disappointed as no councillors were willing
to accept them.

The city administration has often been under fire for making
nonessential demands. The latest incident occurred when they cut
the city budget's allocation to purchase garbage trucks in order
to purchase official vehicles.

The city council was also severely criticized by the public
for their controversial foreign trips to the U.S., Japan and
China in September. They claimed the trips for comparative study,
but in fact they were for pleasure.

After that, they asked the city administration to cover for
their life insurance, which they said they deserve to have it due
to their jobs as councillors.

Meanwhile, Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) said in their
statement that councillors lacked a sense of crisis in their move
to build a new office.

ICW coordinator, Patriala M.K, said that it was about time
that the councillors fixed a rational spending budget.