House drops plan to probe fuel price increases

House drops plan to probe fuel price increases

Tony Hotland, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Opposition bloc in the House of Representatives was dealt a major
blow as the legislative body voted on Tuesday against creating
two special committees to inquire into the government's
controversial fuel price hike policy and the auctioning of
illegal sugar.

During a plenary session, the majority of all 10 factions in
the House agreed not to set up the committees, saying the issues
would already be further examined by existing House commissions.

A request to inquire into the government's fuel price hike
policy was submitted in March after a group of legislators, most
of them from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P),
opposed the rise.

The party has officially declared itself an opposition to the
government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

A House member may request the creation of a special committee
for an issue, with at least 11 legislators from two factions
needed for the request to be brought to the plenary session. All
House factions later on express their views on the motion.

At that time, the House agreed to accept the government's
policy but insisted Cabinet members explain it to the House's
finance commissions, especially the detail of how assistance
packages for the poor in education and health care would be
disbursed.

Three House factions -- the PDI-P, the National Awakening
Party (PKB), and the Social Democratic Party (PDS) -- oppose the
government's fuel hike policy, while other factions spearheaded
by Vice President Jusuf Kalla's Golkar Party and Susilo's
Democratic Party, support it.

The PKB, PDS and PDI-P also called for the special committee
into the sugar smuggling case, which was considered by many to
be marred by corruption and unfair competition.

About 56,000 tons of sugar was discovered after it was
illegally imported from Thailand last year and some of it was
later auctioned. House members filing the request said the
auctions were often not transparent because they were not
publicly announced and questioned the relatively low final
auction prices of the sugar.

The auction process was overseen by the Attorney General's
Office, which is alleged to have favored certain political
interests.

The auction followed an instruction from Vice President Jusuf
Kalla.

The Business Competition Supervisory Commission (KPPU) has
launched an investigation into the auction process, which
reportedly caused Rp 47.85 billion (US$4.87 million) in state
losses as the tender winning company bought the sugar at a price
below the price set by the Ministry of Trade.

KKPU, however, was silent about the fact that the North
Jakarta District Court which administered the auction gave only
four days to companies to take part in the auction. The auction
was made public through a local Jakarta newspaper.

While agreeing that the process was questionable, the House
voted that it should be examined in more detail by the Commission
III on legal affairs and Commission VI on trade and industry.

In the same session, the House formed three working committees
to deliberate three bills with the government -- the 2005-2025
national development planning bill; the disaster mitigation bill;
and the bill on the government regulation in lieu of law No.
1/2005 on industrial disputes resolution.