Councillors insist on clothing budget

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Never ones to be dissuaded by criticism, city councillors are pushing ahead in their quest for a larger clothing budget. City Council chairman Agung Imam Sumanto insisted on Wednesday an additional Rp 435.78 million (US$51,268) for councillors' clothes must be included in the 2003 city budget.

"Don't make this a big issue. It's only about clothes, and the councillors have a right to it," said Agung from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan).

The non-revised budget allocates Rp 778.13 million for the councillors' clothes, part of the Rp 117.21 billion in total the budget allocates for the City Council in 2003.

The council has proposed that it receive an additional Rp 984.78 million in total, which city administration officials and the councillors are discussing.

Ridho Kamaluddin, the chairman of the United Development Party (PPP) faction at the council, said the additional Rp 435 million for clothes only worked out to about Rp 5 million per councillor.

"It's OK if this is dropped from the budget but it is our right," he said.

Council deputy chairman Chudlary Syafi'i Hadzami said the clothes budget helped "improve the welfare of councillors".

The chairwoman of the City Council's Commission C for financial affairs, Anna Rudhiantiana, said earlier the additional Rp 435.78 would be used to purchase "special" clothes for the end of the councillors' term next year.