Govt evises construction budget

Govt evises construction budget

JAKARTA: The city administration revised on Monday a previous
statement on the expenditures for renovating and building school
classrooms, saying that it was not Rp 412 million for each room
as stated before, but Rp 202 million.

"We apologize for the wrong information released previously to
the media and here is a correction," said Sukesti Martono, the
head of the city agency overseeing secondary schools and higher
education.

Sukesti was correcting a statement made by Nawawi, an official
at his agency, who had said that Rp 21 billion had been allocated
this year to build 51 classrooms for high schools and vocational
schools in the city.

Sukesti said it was correct that the fund had allocated only
Rp 11.3 billion for each school.

The revision of the figure was in response to strong public
criticism over the possibility of markups inflating the figure as
the majority of classrooms were poorly constructed or repaired.
An activist estimated that each room should cost only Rp 170
million.

Councillors said that the revised figure was still too high.
--JP