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with the council, who declined to be named, said that as soon as the decree was issued, a total of Rp 1.1 billion was withdrawn from a municipality account.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.