Councillors forced to drop demand for life insurance
Councillors forced to drop demand for life insurance
JAKARTA (JP): Fearful of public criticism, the city council
dropped on Friday its demand for the city administration to
provide its 85 members with life insurance worth Rp 4.25 billion
(US$472,222).
The council's budgetary team secretary, Dani Anwar, said, "We
want to avoid more public criticism, so we are dropping the
insurance demand."
Dani admitted that many councillors demanded life insurance
following the death of three councillors, including Edy Suchro
from the National Mandate Party, due to a heart attack last
month.
He said that currently some councillors were sick, including
councillor Saud Rahman, who suffered a stroke last year and until
now cannot attend council activities.
"Many councillors have questioned what would they leave their
families if they died suddenly. We have done much for the city,"
Dani, of the Justice Party, said.
During a meeting early this week with city officials held at
Horison Hotel Ancol, North Jakarta, he said that the council
suggested that the budget should allocate at least Rp 50 million
for life insurance for each councillor.
He noted that not all 85 councillors have the financial
ability to buy life insurance although some of them may have
joined life insurance plans.
"Not all councillors have the money to buy life insurance.
They are not like the council's deputy chairman Djafar Badjeber,"
Dani said.
Another councillor, Amarullah Asbah, from the Golkar Party,
who earlier supported the life insurance plan for the
councillors, refused to comment on Friday.
Several other councillors seemed also reluctant to comment on
the matter.
Amarullah, who is chairman of the council's Commission C for
financial and budgetary affairs, urged the public on Thursday not
to question the amount of money that would be used for the
insurance as it is far smaller than what had been budgeted this
year.
Djafar, who is also chairman of the city chapter of the United
Development Party, said the Rp 4.25 billion for life insurance
would come from an additional special allowance of Rp 6 billion,
which has been demanded by the council in a revised budget.
Dani said on Friday that although the life insurance demand
has been dropped, the Rp 6 billion special allowance was still to
be allocated in the revised budget.
"It is for allowances for councillors in processing and
passing city bylaws," he said.
The 2001 city budget has allocated Rp 48 billion for
councillors as a "special allowance" to process at least 15
bylaws this year.
Earlier, they proposed an additional special allowance of Rp
11.7 billion in the revised budget. Due to mounting public
criticism, they lowered the allowance to Rp 6 billion. (jun)