Count forestry funds in state budget: DPR

Count forestry funds in state budget: DPR

JAKARTA (JP): The House of Representatives urged yesterday that reforestation funds be counted in the state budget as government revenues, to ensure the accountability of the funds.

Johny Alwi Banyo of the House's Budgetary Commission said the government has actually agreed to gradually include the funds into the state budget.

"But the government has not yet included the reforestation funds into the draft budget for 1995-96 fiscal year," Johny said in the House's plenary session here.

The Ministry of Forestry, which retains the management of reforestation funds, announced earlier this month that it had transferred Rp 596 billion (US$270.9 million) of its reforestation funds to the Ministry of Finance as contingency state budget reserves.

Official figures recently showed that over the past five years, Rp 3.04 trillion (US$1.38 billion) in reforestation funds had been collected from forest concessionaires.

The funds, whose amount depends on the species and quality of harvested logs, are designed to finance reforestation programs.

However, forest concessionaires who harvest their forests according to the government-mandated sustainable management rulings are supposedly entitled to get back the funds they have paid to the forestry ministry if they reforest their concession areas by themselves.

Last year, the forestry ministry, by virtue of a presidential decree, transferred approximately $185 million of interest accrued on the funds to the state-owned IPTN aircraft company in Bandung, West Java as an interest-free loan.

The House also called on the government yesterday to improve the efficiency of state-run companies, which it said are still below par, in a bid to increase the state's non-tax revenues.

In its 1995-1996 draft budget, the government expects Rp 6.49 trillion from non-tax revenues, of which Rp 1.69 trillion is projected from profit dividends of state companies.

"That amount (Rp 1.69 trillion) is too low because it accounts only 0.7 percent of state companies' total assets of Rp 230 trillion. It indicates that the managements of most state companies still need further improvement," Johny said. (rid)