Home is where the cash is for Bandarlampung officials

Home is where the cash is for Bandarlampung officials

Oyos Saroso H.N., The Jakarta Post, Bandarlampung

Amid criticism, Bandar Lampung Mayor Suharto has pushed ahead
with disbursing housing allowance payments to city council
members even though the provincial budget for this year has yet
to be signed.

As of Monday, 30 out of the council's 45 members had received
their housing allowances, worth between Rp 25 million and Rp 30
million each.

The move came to public attention on Saturday after some
council members admitted they had collected their allowances
following the issuance of a mayoral decree on the disbursement of
housing allowances on Jan. 18.

A staffer with the council, who declined to be named, said
that as soon as the decree was issued, a total of Rp 1.1 billion
was withdrawn from a municipality account. Some council members
picked up their payments on the same day.

Activists and students have criticized the payments as they
were made before the provincial budget was officially signed.
They also slammed the allowances as being extravagant and out of
touch with reality.

"The payments fly in the face of reality. All the members of
the council already own decent houses. Even if the payments were
used by council members to rent houses, they would still be way
too expensive as the rent for an A-type house, a good one in the
city center, is only Rp 12 million a year at most," said Armen
Yasir, an activist with Lampung Parliament Watch (LPW).

Armen, who is also a lecturer in administrative law at Lampung
University's school of law, said the paying out of the housing
allowances could be regarded as corruption as it flew in the face
of the central government's Regulation No. 24/2004 on the
financial structure and composition of legislative councils.

He said that this regulation entitled a council member who did
not have a house to an official residence or a housing allowance
based on average rent standards in the relevant area.

"What sort of luxurious mansion would Rp 22 million or Rp 30
million get you in Bandar Lampung? It's only a ruse by council
members to pocket the money. In reality, all the council members
already have houses, and most of them are very luxurious ones,"
he said.

The mayoral decree entitles the council speaker to a housing
allowance of Rp 30 million, while the two deputy speakers get Rp
27.5 million each. Ordinary council members receive Rp 25 million
each, bringing the total cost of the housing allowances to the
taxpayer to more than Rp 1.1 billion.

A councilor, who requested anonymity, said that the size of
the housing allowance was based on a survey of house rents in the
city.

"A house in the Way Halim Permai housing complex costs between
Rp 20 million and Rp 25 million per year," said the councillor,
who admitted he had collected the allowance.

The leader of the Golkar Party faction, Benny Halomoan N.
Mansyur, who had earlier opposed the housing allowances, later
agreed to them but said he would not collect his until the
provincial budget had been signed.

During last month's debate on the allowances in the council,
members proposed that total allowances of Rp 1.5 billion per year
be allocated for the 45 council members. The money would be used
for housing allowances and for "education and training courses"
for council members. But after public criticism, the allocation
was reduced to approximately Rp 1.1 billion, to be used for
housing allowances alone.