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.