East Kutai council in hot water for golden handshakes

East Kutai council in hot water for golden handshakes

Rusman, Samarinda

Members of the East Kutai regency legislative council, East
Kalimantan, are again in the hot seat following the discovery
that they have been allocated severance pay to the tune of Rp 300
million (US$ 31,579) each for their four-year term.

The money has been paid in stages since 2001, with each
councillor receiving Rp 75 million per year. Another Rp 75
million will be paid in the near future for each of the 25
councillors, before the councillors end their term in August this
year.

Unlike other regental councillors who serve the public for
five years, councillors in East Kutai have only a four-year term,
because the resource-rich regency was partitioned from Kutai
regency in 2000.

Information about the huge payment, was revealed on Friday by
an activist of a non-governmental organization (NGO) the Voices
of Bureaucracy and Politics Monitoring Activists (Suappobi),
Yusuf.

"We were told by a councillor that all 25 councillors have
been allocated severance pay, so we investigated it.

And, it is true," said Yusuf.

All in all, the state has to spend Rp 1.875 billion for the
severance pay each year.

Yusuf said that the amount was disproportionate considering
that there were so many people still living below the poverty
line in the regency.

The allocation of the money also violates existing
regulations. According to Government Decree No. 110/2000 and a
circular by the Minister of Home Affairs No. 161/2003,
councillors are only allowed to receive specific allowances,
including health and travel.

Severance pay, however, is not listed in either the government
decree or the circular.

"The councillors have to return the money to the regency's
treasury," Yusuf demanded.

If the councillors fail to return the money to the state, the
NGO will file a complaint against them with the police, said
Yusuf.

Separately, deputy speaker of East Kutai Council Bahrid Buseng
acknowledged that the NGO's report was true. But, he denied that
the councillors had committed any crime.

"The allowance has been approved by the executive (branch of
government) and the councillors themselves, so there should be no
problem with that," he said.

He added that the councillors deserved that amount of money as
they had worked hard in the past four years. He said that the
councillors were ready to face a police investigation.

The scandal is the second to shake the regental council. The
first incident surfaced last month when the speaker of the
regental council, Abdal Nanang, was named a suspect for his
alleged involvement in the misuse of the regental council's
secretariat budget of Rp 46.6 billion for the 2001-2002 period.

Meanwhile, another enormous allowance received by the
councillors is the recess fund. In the regental budget, Rp 810
million has been set aside each year to be given to the 25
councillors during the recess period. NGO activists have
criticized this as unfair, because the councillors do nothing
during the recess, yet they still receive a staggering amount of
money.