Crisis forces city to review its draft budget

JAKARTA (JP): The monetary crisis has forced the municipality to keep reviewing its draft budget for the 1998/1999 fiscal year which is due to take effect beginning April 1, an official said.

The continuous reviews have caused significant delays in getting final approval from the City Council, said Ongky Sukasah, one of several senior city officials who attended the latest budget meeting Thursday.

Normally a plenary session to review the draft takes place in January.

Last year the session was held on Jan. 24.

"Continuous reviews of a draft are actually normal in these conditions because of the severe fluctuations in our economic problems," Ongky, head of the city's housing agency, told The Jakarta Post Friday.

Ongky said the last meeting warmly welcomed Governor Sutiyoso's instruction to all city units and agencies to return any unused funds from the 1997/1998 fiscal year budget to the municipality.

He said the governor also called on his subordinates to cut down on unnecessary expenses and return unused funds.

"This includes funds which were supposed to be used for overseas trips, seminars and other unnecessary ceremonies, which have all been terminated," he said.

The bottom line, he added, was that all city officials should be thrifty because the city could no longer afford to pay for anything but essentials.

"Actually this order has been in place for quite sometime, but in last Thursday's meeting, he reiterated that all units must soon return their remaining funds to the Deputy Governor for Economic and Financial affairs," he said.

Early reports said all 64 city units and agencies must also reduce their proposed budgets for the upcoming fiscal year by 10 percent to 15 percent.

Thursday's meeting was closed to the press.

A number of officials of the National Disciplinary Movement stopped City Hall reporters from attending the meeting.

But Ongky questioned the reason for the closure.

"What was there to hide? It was just a simple notification from the governor to his subordinates to be aware of the economic situation.

"The municipality has to show to the public its political will to be thrifty and cautious in handling the city budget during a time of economic woe," he said.

Deputy Governor for Economic and Development Affairs Harun Al Rasyid was quoted by Sinar weekly recently as saying the previous draft city budget proposal of Rp 3.1 trillion for 1998/1999 was to be cut to Rp 2.8 trillion,

In December, the city cut its proposed budget from Rp 3.22 trillion to Rp 3.1 trillion.

Ongky said: "The city is having a hard time here. It's quite tiring for the city's agencies to keep on changing their budget proposals. But what else we can do?

"My agency, for instance, has to find ways to cut down our proposed budget of Rp 55 billion for the upcoming fiscal year," he added.

This would be hard because the agency has already publicly announced its programs, he said.

"It will be embarrassing if, for instance, we have to cancel plans to finance compensation for people moving from state land or build cheap apartments. This will also affect the relationship between the agency and investors," Ongky said. (edt)