House decides to maintain current BPK board

House decides to maintain current BPK board

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The House of Representatives will ask President Megawati
Soekarnoputri to issue a presidential decree extending the tenure
of the chairman of the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) and other board
members.

"Hopefully, a new board can be selected next year," House
Speaker Akbar Tandjung said during a plenary session on Friday.

The five-year tenure of the current BPK board was scheduled to
end on Oct. 8.

According to Law No. 5/1973 on the BPK, members of the audit
agency serve five-year terms and can be reelected for a second
term.

The same law stipulates that the chairman, deputy chairman and
members of the BPK are nominated by the House and appointed by
the President.

But according to the country's amended Constitution, BPK
members are now to be selected by the House after hearings with
the Regional Representatives Council (DPD), a body that will only
be formed after next year's legislative elections.

The BPK board consists of one chairman, one deputy chairman
and five members. The audit agency is tasked with examining the
implementation of the state budget and the financial reports of
state institutions.

Akbar said the decision to extend the term of the current BPK
board was made following a meeting with leaders of the House
factions and top officials of House Commission IX for finance and
banking.

BPK chairman Satrio B. Judono urged the President immediately
to issue the decree on the extension.

Next February, the BPK is required to submit to the House the
results of its audit of the implementation of the 2003 state
budget.

Earlier this week, the BPK reported to the House that it had
found some 87 cases of possible irregularities worth Rp 1.94
billion in the implementation of the 2003 state budget; 369 cases
worth Rp 6.25 billion in the budgets of regional governments and
regionally owned enterprises; and 117 cases worth Rp 7.79 billion
in state-owned enterprises. The total size of all the budgets
audited by the agency during the period totaled Rp 5.09 trillion.

The agency has complained about what it says is the
government's lackluster efforts in combating corruption, saying
most of the suspected corruption cases discovered by the agency
have been ignored.

The agency has reported a total of 6,162 suspected corruption
cases since 2001 to the Attorney General's Office and the
National Police, but only 505 cases, or just over 8 percent of
all the cases, have been investigated, Satrio said.