Councillors to get free training paid for by UNDP
Ahmad Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Public funds apparently are no longer adequate for Jakarta city councillors as they revealed their plan on Friday to use foreign funding worth US$130,000 to improve their knowledge in the fields of urban and environmental management.
"We have been criticized for wasting the city budget, so now we will cooperate with foreign institutions to finance our projects," councillor Tjuk Sudono of the National Mandate Party (PAN) told reporters.
This year's budget allocates a total of Rp 91 billion for the 85 councillors. That includes Rp 1 billion for a clothing allowance and Rp 5 billion for foreign and domestic travel. Their budget will also be used for their salaries -- inclusive of daily transportation expenses which comes to a whopping Rp 32 million per month per councillor -- of Rp 42 billion, welfare allowances of Rp 19 billion, operational costs of Rp 10 billion and meeting allowances which come to Rp 1.4 billion.
Tjuk, who was a former executive with American oil company ARCO, said the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the US-based General Electric Corporation had agreed to disburse US$100,000 and US$30,000 respectively to finance a number of projects, including training in urban and environmental management.
He said the knowledge of urban and environmental management was desperately needed by the councillors for them to effectively understand their duties with regard to supervising a city like Jakarta.
Tjuk added that the program would also involve local residents in certain areas which were identified as having environmental problems.
"The program will deal with problems, such as garbage and floods, and will be expanded to other districts in the future," he said.
City Council deputy chairman Chudlary Syafei Hadzami said the Council had selected four districts, Tanah Abang, Sawah Besar, Johar Baru and Cempaka Putih as pilot project areas for the program.
"The program is set to begin in February this year," Chudlary of the United Development Party (PPP) said, but admitted that the details could not yet be made public.
The councillors have often been criticized for wasting huge sums of public money to finance their facilities and training them how to be administrators. Despite a number of publicly funded projects in recent years to improve their skills in managing the city, including several "comparative studies" abroad, it seems that none have made significant enough improvement in the councillors' skills and knowledge, thus further training was deemed necessary.
Two years ago the city budget financed the councillors' master's degree program in management from privately-run STIE Jagakarsa school of management.
Although it was never made clear how well they did or if they passed the exams, currently many councillors put MM degree behind their names.
Other councillors who were only high school graduates, were given financing to study undergraduate programs in political science at 17 Agustus University in 2001.
The councillors, whose monthly base salary is was quoted at Rp 9 million each, also received special benefits such as an official sedans paid for out of the city budget.