Councillors' added demand stalls budget meeting

Councillors' added demand stalls budget meeting

Ahmad Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The city budget formulation team, consisting of councillors and
administration officials, failed to finalize its work on Tuesday
after negotiations became deadlocked due to demands by
councillors that the allocations for their respective commissions
be increased.

The team's chairwoman, Anna Rudhiantiana, admitted that
councillors from the council's commissions were demanding an
additional Rp 279 billion on top of the allocations that had been
made so far for their commissions.

"The commissions were demanding increases for particular
projects. Some projects that had never even been mentioned before
were brought up the commissions," Anna, also the chairwoman of
the council's budget commission, told reporters.

She said that Council Commission B for economic affairs, which
has been allocated Rp 400 billion for its projects, had demanded
an increase of Rp 14 billion for the acquisition of land to
accommodate street vendors.

Commission D for development affairs, whose projects already
account for a Rp 4 trillion chunk of the budget, asked for an
increase of Rp 140 billion for the appropriation of land for low-
cost apartments, while Commission E for social welfare affairs
demanded an increase of Rp 125 billion, even though its projects
have so far been allocated about Rp 2 trillion.

"The requested increases cannot be met as the budget will only
amount to about Rp 11 trillion as was earlier mooted," said Anna,
who represents the Golkar Party.

She believed that certain officials from city administration
agencies and offices whose projects had been rejected by the City
Development Planning Office had approached particular councillors
to seek support for their projects.

"They claimed that their projects, such as the appropriation
of the land for low-cost apartment and street vendors, had been
approved by Sutiyoso," she said.

The team started its meetings on Saturday and, according to
the council's schedule, should have completed its work on Monday.
The latest delay has triggered fears that the budget might not be
approved on Friday as scheduled.

However, Anna was optimistic that the budget would be approved
by the council on time. "While the arrangements will not be
really perfect, the budget should be approved as scheduled," she
claimed.

She revealed the original budget estimate of Rp 11.05 trillion
might be increased to Rp 11.075 trillion due to the dividend of
Rp 25 billion paid this year by city-owned Bank DKI.

Besides the demands for increased project allocations, the
delay in the final framing of the budget has been due to debate
over the allocation of Rp 122 billion for the city's 85
councillors.

The councillors have rejected demands that their allocation
should be significantly reduced, and in the end only agreed to a
cut of Rp 4.5 billion.

They also rejected a suggestion from Sutiyoso that his
gubernatorial allocation of Rp 9 billion be reduced to Rp 5
billion, saying that they would only reduce it by Rp 950 million.

Separately, Deputy Governor Fauzi Bowo rejected on Tuesday the
new projects that had been proposed by the council's commissions
during the budget meetings.

"The governor never approved these projects as has been
claimed by the councillors," Fauzi said.

Asked about the refusal of the council to cut the
gubernatorial budget allocation, he said: "Although the
allocation has not been reduced, we may end up not using all of
it."