Councilor questions drop in city's revenue

Councilor questions drop in city's revenue

JAKARTA (JP): A senior city councilor questioned city revenue
cutbacks stipulated in the revised 1999/2000 budget proposed on
Monday by Deputy Governor Fauzi Alvi Yasin.

Chairman of the council's commission C for financial affairs
Amarullah Asbah said after a plenary session that the council was
still in the dark about the reduction in the city's projected
revenue from gasoline taxes.

"The executives should explain why the predicted revenue from
gasoline taxes was reduced," he said.

Amarullah, a Golkar Party legislator, said the revenue from
gasoline tax was earlier projected at Rp 60 billion (US$8.8
million), but was revised to Rp 55 billion.

He said assuming that the city's 2.8 million cars used an
average of 10 liters of fuel a day, the city should obtain more
than Rp 500 billion a year from gasoline taxes.

He said the council would ask the state-owned oil and gas
company PT Pertamina to reveal its city sales report.

Amarullah said the council would need explanations concerning
the decrease in city-owned Bank DKI's predicted contribution from
Rp 15 billion to only Rp 9 billion.

He also questioned the performance of the city parking
management agency BP Parkir, pointing out that it still needed a
Rp 3 billion subsidy from the city administration.

The councilor said although the revised budget showed an
increase of 37 percent from Rp 2.7 trillion to Rp 3.7 trillion,
the increment would be mainly drawn from last year's city's
budget surplus.

"The increase was not really significant, since some sectors
contributing to the city's revenue show decreases," he said.
(jun)