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)