'Foreign-trip fever' strikes councillors

Ainur R. Sophiaan, The Jakarta Post, Surabaya

Overseas trips have reached epidemic proportions in the East Java provincial legislative council with many councillors having accepted invitations from the provincial administration to undertake "comparative studies" abroad.

Seven members of the legislative council's Commission E on social welfare are planning their fifth foreign trip to conduct comparative studies, this time in Hong Kong and the Philippines.

Harbiah Salahuddin, a member of the commission, said she along with six other councillors would travel to the two countries to learn first hand how Indonesian migrant workers were treated in Hong Kong, and how the Philippines had managed to speed up its labor export procedures.

"The comparative study is needed because the majority of Indonesian workers employed overseas are from the province (East Java)," she said.

She declined to reveal the amount of funds that had been allocated by the provincial legislature for the trip.

Saleh Ismail Mukadar, a member of the council's Commission A on public administration, also revealed that his commission was planning an overseas trip to conduct comparative studies on administrative practices in a number of countries.

"Many invitations for foreign trips from the executive have reached our commission, but we have accepted only this one because it is considered quite important for our efforts to develop democracy in the local administration," he said.

The council also discussed recently the provincial administration's invitations for three comparative studies to Australia, the Netherlands, and several Southeast Asian countries respectively.

Lutfillah Masduki, another member of the commission, admitted that "foreign-trip fever" had the councillors in thrall. He said that many members of the council had already undertaken similar missions to Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Thailand, but that so far no steps had been taken to improve labor conditions in the province.

"Numerous groups of legislators have used the excuse of comparative studies in various countries as opportunities to go on junkets and have a good time at the state's expense, while all the time ignoring the numerous problems facing the province," he said, adding that the funds spent on foreign trips actually belonged to the people.

An alliance of 18 non-governmental organizations have filed a class action suit against a number of councillors who went on comparative studies to Batam, Singapore and Malaysia earlier this year as the trips were considered to have been a waste of taxpayers' money.

Ismail Saleh Mukadar, also a councillor, said that he along with other members of the council were trying to reject the invitations as too many councillors had made too many foreign trips for comparative study purposes this year.

"If the invitations have to be accepted, then the trips should be taken next year," he said, warning that despite the invitations, the legislative council still had to chip in, at least as far as councillors' expenses while abroad were concerned.