Council sniffs out budget problems

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

The City Council said on Friday it had spotted irregularities in several municipal administrations that could add up to as much as Rp 20.2 billion (US$2.3 million) in state losses.

Achmad Suaidy, chairman of the Council's Commission A for city institutions, said his commission had found irregularities in the financial reports of several municipalities.

"So far we have examined Central Jakarta, South Jakarta, West Jakarta and East Jakarta. The results simply confirmed allegations of irregularities in the institutions of the Jakarta administration," Suaidy told The Jakarta Post.

A report submitted by the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) to the City Council suggested some municipalities and city agencies were unable to account for up to a total of Rp 20.2 billion of the 2003/2004 state budget.

In the report, the BPK disclosed alleged irregularities in the North Jakarta municipality (Rp 1.9 billion), the City Parks Agency (Rp 368 million), City Public Lighting and Road Infrastructure Agency (Rp 357 million), City Transportation Agency (Rp 6.2 billion) and the TransJakarta busway management (Rp 801 million).

Suaidy said irregularities were suspected in some of the substantial changes made by municipalities in budget allocations.

The commission suspects irregularities, for instance, in a budget allocation that was originally for cleaning up a river, but was switched to finance a road construction project.

"We cannot tolerate such changes," he said. "What we fear is that such fundamental changes in budget allocations could set a bad precedent in the use of budget allocations meant for poor residents."

He said these irregularities further undermined the credibility of city officials in the eyes of residents.

Suaidy, however, declined to detail the irregularities, saying the commission was still looking into alleged irregularities at several other institutions.

"We do not want other institutions currently waiting to be examined by the commission to hide the irregularities from us," he said.

The commission plans to summon officials from the North Jakarta municipal administration, the Thousand Islands regency and city agencies and offices next week.

Governor Sutiyoso denied there were any budget irregularities, but said some of his subordinates did make "some mistakes in their administrative work".

"City Audit Agency head Firman Hutajulu has reported those mistakes (in the financial reports). Those mistakes do not necessarily mean irregularities. They might be the result of careless accounting or overlapping regulations," Sutiyoso said.

The governor has repeatedly said he will take stern action against any official found guilty of corruption. No top administration officials have been punished for corruption under Sutiyoso.

A survey carried out by Transparency International Indonesia in mid-February found that Jakarta was the most corrupt region in the country out of 27 provinces, municipalities and regencies, followed by Surabaya, Medan, Semarang and Batam regency.