Council irked by poor reports on education fund use

Council irked by poor reports on education fund use

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

The City Council blasted on Friday poor financial reports on the
use of the 2004 city budget for education, saying the reports
gave the impression that city officials were unprofessional and
not serious in handling taxpayers' money.

"We have examined 14 offices out of 30 offices with the City
Elementary Education Agency and we discovered problems in most
financial reports made by those offices," the chairman of the
council's Commission E for education and people's welfare, Dani
Anwar, announced after a hearing with North Jakarta elementary
education office on Friday.

Dani, who appeared to be infuriated by the state of the
reports, said his commission, for instance, found that the North
Jakarta elementary education office had failed to explain its
spending in its financial report.

"For example, the office states in its report that it
distributed books and pencils worth Rp 650 million (US$69,148) to
poor students, but it failed to attach necessary data about the
recipients."

The office also spent Rp 77 million on purchasing filing
cabinets, but failed to detail how many it bought, he said.

Councillor Syamsidar Siregar lambasted poor coordination
between the City Finance Bureau and city offices following the
finding of a significant difference of up to Rp 598 million
between the report made by the bureau and that of the Central
Jakarta elementary education office.

"The City Finance Bureau reported that the office spent Rp
17.44 billion compared to the office's report of some Rp 16.9
billion," Syamsidar said.

The commission also discovered that some offices shared some
programs, and each listed the same amounts in spending, such as
the procurement of desks, chairs and blackboards for schools
amounting to Rp 35 million.

The commission also found that the North Jakarta elementary
education office had a project "to draw up programs and
operations", which ate up Rp 200 million. None of the other
offices, however, had such a project.

North Jakarta elementary education office head Iwan Setiawan
denied there were irregularities in his financial report, but was
unable to give the required explanations.

"We will try to complete the necessary data required by the
commission later," Iwan said.

Last month, Commission E also noted alleged embezzlement of
around Rp 133 million in assistance funds for poor students at
state junior high school 232, Pisangan, Pulogadung, East Jakarta.

The assistance funds, which were meant to provide scholarships
to 798 poor students, had been used to purchase equipment, like
furniture, a TV, a photocopy machine and an air-conditioner. The
commission said the television, air-conditioner and furniture
were for the principal's room.

The police have dropped the case, saying no offense had been
committed.