Cost of MPR session

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
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;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