Councillors get itchy feet, cut fire budget
Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
City councillors are reportedly changing an allocation of Rp 11 billion (US$1.2 million), which was earlier set for domestic trips, to finance their overseas trips.
Chairman of the Justice Party faction at the council confirmed that many councillors proposed the use of the Rp 11 billion for domestic and foreign trips.
"But there is still a legal constraint in the change of the allocation of the fund," said Heryawan, a member of the City Council Commission E for social welfare, without giving further details on the weekend.
He revealed that he had prohibited three of his colleagues from joining a planned overseas trips.
Sources earlier said that several councillors planned to go to some cities in Middle Eastern Countries and Europe for a comparative study.
Many have criticized the council for wasting money by conducting comparative studies which turned out to be junkets.
In 2000, three councillors were declared suspects for taking travel allowances even though they did not join the overseas trip which was funded by the city budget and city-owned property firm, PT Pembangunan Jaya Ancol. The case was never been brought to court.
Due to mounting public criticism, the council decided not to allocate funds for foreign trips in last year's budget and also this year's budget.
Meanwhile, the head of the urban division of the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute Tubagus Haryo Karbyanto criticized the proposal.
"The council could put the fund to better use for the people's interests, such as for the city fire department," Tubagus told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.
He said the poor budgetary planning was due to collusion between administration officials and councillors in deciding its programs and projects.
Besides proposing the fund for foreign trips, the council also suggested a cut in the budget for the Jakarta Fire Department from Rp 211,555 billion (US$24 million) to Rp 184,33 billion.
Separately, Muhamad Suhud of the International NGO Forum on Indonesian Development (Infid), said that officials from the administration could not claim the councillors forced them to agree to certain proposals.
"The question is why do the city administration officials agree to the councillors' proposals. If the officials are acting in the interests of the people, they should not bow to councillors' pressure," he added.
A number of officials in the city administration complained earlier that they are forced to compromise with councillors in deciding on projects funded by the city budget so that their projects could be agreed on by the councillors.
"As you probably know such (collusion) practices are not new, as we will find difficulties if we reject their proposals. As a result there are many projects are useless," said an official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.