Cost of MPR session

From Sinar Pagi

According to reports, the Annual Session of the People's Consultative Assembly (ST MPR) costs around Rp 19 billion. The sum is obviously very big, because the money could otherwise be used to relieve the needs of a lot of poor people, or pay the school fees of their children.

However, the large amount will be worth the effort if the outcome of ST MPR is really beneficial to the entire Indonesian population. For instance, if the ST MPR runs smoothly and the constitutional amendment process is properly handled and their is a decision made to organize direct presidential elections in 2004. Besides, the session should not create security problems and cause public worries.

In other words, the cost of Rp 19 billion is relative: it can be big and even a waste of money, but it can be appropriate in view of the effort exerted by the assembly during the session.

Yet it is worth proposing that the respectable members of the MPR should not unnecessarily stay at hotels, particularly those who live in Jakarta. It means unwarranted spending as the country is in the process of economic recovery.

RIZAL MALAKAK

Jakarta -------------------------------------------------------------------

;JP;LEI ANPAk..r.. Letter-Agraria More attention needed to agrarian sector

Confusing tax bills

From Warta Kota

Last year, my neighbors and I got notification from the West Jakarta tax office to pay land and building tax (PBB) arrears from the previous year at the Kedoya Selatan subdistrict office.

In fact, we already settled the tax owed and kept payment receipts as evidence. We understood the repeated demands for payment and regarded it as human error.

Unexpectedly, after a year, on July 18, 2002 to be exact, we were again summoned to pay PBB backlogs. More strangely, the notice for me mentioned PBB arrears in 1995. Fortunately, I have kept my PBB receipts since I moved to this subdistrict in 1992.

When I showed the receipts to the local tax office, the personnel in charge still insisted that I pay the sum as demanded because there had been a change of administration from the subdistrict of Duri Kepa to Kedoya Selatan.

Though finally I was allowed to leave without paying anything, I wondered what would become of my neighbors who might have lost their payment receipts. So, where has all the PBB money already transferred to appointed banks gone thus far?

Citizen of Kedoya Selatan Jakarta