Council criticizes proposed budget

Novan Iman Santosa, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The City Council urged the Jakarta administration on Thursday to be more efficient and prudent in drafting the 2003 City Budget as there was a lot of overlapping and unnecessary items included in the draft budget.

Councillors made their criticisms during a plenary meeting when individual factions gave their overall responses to the draft budget.

Earlier on Monday, Governor Sutiyoso presented the proposed budget of Rp 11.05 trillion to be funded by city revenue of Rp 8.89 trillion and another Rp 2.2 trillion in unspent funds left over from the 2002 budget, which amounted to Rp 9.7 trillion.

Critics had rebuked the governor for increasing the budget even though more than 22 percent of last year's budget was left unspent, which indicated the administration's poor planing and failure to implement the projects properly.

In response to Sutiyoso's budget proposal, the Justice Party (PK) faction, questioned two separate projects to provide computerized, on-line mailing systems for the governor costing Rp 99 million and Rp 100 million respectively.

"There are also similarities in legal education projects with each costing Rp 200 million," PK faction spokesman Abdul Aziz Matnur said.

Similar possible duplication was also revealed by Tubagus Abbas Saleh Ma'mun of the Nation Awakening Party (PKB) faction, pointing to expenditures on land capital.

"There are two items for land capital expenditure with the same 2.3.01.01 code but with different values in the draft.

"The first item is worth some Rp 13 billion and the other costs more than Rp 436 billion," he added.

Abbas said that such duplication showed that the executive branch still had to improve its administration capabilities.

The councillors not only questioned possible duplications, indicating either typographical mistakes or intended mark-ups, but also questioned the importance of several items in the draft budget.

The PK faction, for example, questioned the importance of the City Transportation Agency acquiring new Harley-Davidson motorcycles costing more than Rp 3.5 billion when the agency could simply acquire other makes of bike that were cheaper.

The faction also pointed to the trend among city agencies of acquiring computers at a cost of more than Rp 1 billion for each agency.

"The City Population Agency proposes an unrealistic budget of Rp 1.5 billion for new computers," said Aziz.

The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) faction condemned to the City Public Works Agency for its proposed waste water treatment plants to be built in Mayestik, South Jakarta, and Cengkareng, West Jakarta, at a cost of Rp 1.5 billion each.

"The scope of those projects is limited to the municipality level, so why was it the city agency who proposed the plants? they should have been proposed by the respective municipality public works offices instead," said faction spokesman Ajarta Sebayang.

It was feared that the municipalities would later propose similar projects even though the factions did not specifically say this.

Meanwhile, the Crescent and Star Party (PBB) faction spokesman, Syarifien Maloko, questioned the fact that the City Public Order Agency received increased budgets from year to year without any concrete results.

"Traditional markets and our streets are still congested due to the presence of so many street vendors. They also build their stalls on the sidewalks denying pedestrians the right of way."

While focusing their responses on different subjects, all factions agreed on one subject: that the city administration should be able to generate more revenue from city-owned companies.

The administration expects to receive Rp 67.23 billion this year, which is considered far below the real potential of the companies.

The United Development Party (PPP), for example, pointed to market operator PD Pasar Jaya, which is expected to contribute Rp 3.5 billion to the city budget.

"The company should be able to contribute more given that it has assets worth hundreds of billions of rupiah all over the city," PPP faction spokesman HA Rahman said.