Council factions question budget allocations by city administration
Council factions question budget allocations by city administration
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The city council questioned on Thursday the city
administration's claim to have provided a greater allocation for
general public spending under the 2002 draft city budget.
In their general overview of the draft budget, the major
Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and National Mandate Party
(PAN) factions unanimously demanded that the administration
elaborate on the exact amounts allocated respectively to general
public spending and spending on the city's public servants.
PAN doubted the administration's claim that the lion's share
of the draft budget was devoted to general public spending, the
faction said in a statement read out by Wasilah Sutrisno.
According to PAN, the major share of the 2002 budget was, in
fact, devoted to city operational spending, rather than general
public spending.
PAN said that operational spending accounted for 78 percent of
the total budget of Rp 8.94 trillion, leaving only 22 percent for
general public expenditure.
PAN pointed out that in the 2002 budget, routine spending was
posted at Rp 5.56 trillion, or 63 percent of the total budget,
while development spending was posted at Rp 3.29 trillion, or 37
percent of the total budget.
In his remarks to the council on Monday when presenting the
draft budget, Governor Sutiyoso said that his administration
planned to boost the popular economy, hard hit by the prolonged
economic crisis.
"General public spending will account for 61 percent of total
development spending, while the remaining 39 percent will go on
operational spending," he said earlier.
This means that the administration is once again set to take a
chunk out of the development budget to its running costs.
The PDI-P also questioned the drastic changes made by the
administration to the draft 2002 budget, in which the allocation
for general public spending rose significantly to 62 percent of
the total budget from only 40 percent previously.
According to the PDI-P, many allocations in the draft budget
needed to be specifically and transparently defined in formats
that clearly indicated which funds were intended for the
operational spending and which were destined for general public
spending as lack of clarity could result in corruption.
"Our faction will restlessly press for the executive to be
serious about eradicating all forms of corruption, collusion, and
nepotism ...," it said in a statement read out by Totok
Ismunandar.
The faction also criticized the city administration's handling
of social problems in urban areas. The efforts to resolve these
problems, such as the eviction of squatters and forcible removal
of street vendors, are not only fruitless, but also a waste of
funds, according to the faction.