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)