Controversy surrounds Yogyakarta's 2001 budget

Controversy surrounds Yogyakarta's 2001 budget

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Councillors sang their support for the 2001
provincial budget draft here on Monday, turning a deaf ear to a
roaring protest by 150 activists outside the legislative
building.

The council's deputy speaker, Nur Ahmad Affandi, who presided
over the plenary session, said the councillors were racing
against time.

"We were supposed to deliver the approved budget to Jakarta
before May," Ahmad said.

The draft budget was approved without challenge reportedly
after the council received a radiogram from the Ministry of Home
Affairs urging it to approve the draft.

Ahmad said the council would listen to any criticism of the
approved budget. "We will review the budget if there are many
glitches in it," he told representatives of the protesters, from
the People's Front for Budget Transparency.

The demonstrators demanded the councillors delay the budget
approval because of several unresolved controversies.

One of the protesters, Rinto Andriono from the Yogyakarta-
based Institute for Development and Economic Analysis, said the
administration only allocated 20.75 percent of the budget for
development programs.

The provincial administration proposed a 2001 budget of Rp
355.8 billion, down from the Rp 479.8 billion budget for the
nine-month 2000 fiscal year.

A group of people claiming to be from the Anti-Communist Youth
Movement (GEPAKO), an organization recently formed by the local
branch of the Golkar Party, stormed into the room where the
councillors were meeting with representatives of the protesters.

Brandishing iron bars, the GEPAKO activists told the budget
protesters they had been informed that the Democratic People's
Party (PRD) was behind the rally.

No violence broke out as the councillors managed to calm the
GEPAKO activists. (23)