Councilor urges increase in budget for legal sector

JAKARTA (JP): A city councilor has criticized the city administration's failure to increase the funds available for legal sector development in a proposed budget revision.

Helmy A.R. Syihab of the United Development Party faction told a plenary session of the Council, held yesterday to discuss the city's proposed upward revision of its current 1995/1996 budget, that the administration must pay greater attention to the improvement of legal awareness on the part of the public.

"People need education about the law and that requires a lot of money," he said.

He cited the increasing number of land disputes brought to the council recently as examples of poor awareness about law on the part of both the community and government officials.

Most of the recent land disputes have involved either squatters or developers or both, he said.

The squatters have no legal rights to the land, Helmy said, but nevertheless they occupy it. When it comes to compensating land owners for land appropriated for development projects, he added, there are no standard rates of compensation.

"Education about the law is therefore needed by all layers of society, including bureaucrats and law enforcement officials. Thus, more money is needed for the legal development sector," he added.

The current budget for legal sector development is Rp 3.76 billion (US$1.76 million).

Helmy said he could hardly believe that the city was not proposing to increase the allocation for legal sector development in the draft budget revision. He called on the administration to explain to the council how the existing funds could be regarded as adequate.

Governor Surjadi Soedirdja plans to increase the city's spending in the current fiscal year by 17 percent to Rp 2.6 trillion ($1.13 billion) as a consequence of an unexpected surplus in last year's budget.

The administration gained a windfall of Rp 387.55 billion through a recalculation of the 1994/1995 budget.

Councilor Abdulgani H. Abdullah of the Indonesian Democratic Party faction also said in yesterday's session that it is time for the city administration to set a standard rate for land compensation in order to prevent further disputes in future. (32)