City to submit 2003 budget to council this week
Ahmad Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The city administration will soon submit the 2003 city budget, amounting to Rp 11 trillion (US$1.2 billion), to City Council, an official said on Thursday.
"We will submit the budget in the next one or two days so that the council can start discussing it next week," a financial assistant to the city secretary, Makmun Amin, told The Jakarta Post at City Hall.
Makmun said that the General Allocation Fund (DAU) from the central government and an increase in taxes had contributed to the Rp 11 trillion budget, which increased by about 13 percent from this year's Rp 9.7 trillion budget.
He said earlier that increases in mainly the vehicle, property and hotel, restaurant and entertainment taxes, amounting to about Rp 4.5 trillion, had contributed the most to the budget.
The General Allocation Fund will be increased from about Rp 600 billion this year to Rp 900 billion next year.
A reported Rp 2.2 trillion from this year's budget was not spent and will be carried over into next year's budget.
Critics accused the city administration of poor budget planning, resulting in a large amount of money left over in the budget, while problems still plagued people.
Critics said that even though the administration increased taxes, the city administration could not spend the fund properly on city development.
The city administration earlier increased vehicle taxes from 1 percent to 1.5 percent of the vehicle's resale value.
Admitting to poor budget planning, Makmun said the increase in the budget was also caused by funding restraints in other projects.
He also said that several projects, such as the development of public parks, could not be executed because of an increase in the price of land, which could not have been predicted beforehand.
The administration had announced that 30 percent of the 2003 budget would be allocated toward administration costs while the remaining 70 percent would go to public spending.
Separately, head of the City Development Planning Office Ritola Tasmaya said that some Rp 65 billion of the 2003 budget would be allocated for land appropriation in the East Flood Canal project.
"Other projects which will be financed by the budget include flyovers and dams," Ritola told The Jakarta Post on Thursday, without mentioning the amount of funding for the projects.
The development of the 23-kilometer canal is predicted to cost Rp 12 trillion and the administration hopes that it will be mainly financed by the central government.
After the recent floods which hit the city between January and February of this year, the government promised to finance the project, but so far, the total amount of funding has not been announced.
The canal and the existing 15-kilometer West Flood Canal are believed to be able to accommodate flooding from the city's 13 rivers and will also reduce floods.
This year, the administration allocated Rp 50 billion for the appropriation of 2 hectares of land for the project, which requires 230 hectares.