House speaker blasts lazy legislators

House speaker blasts lazy legislators

Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

In response to public criticism over the lack of discipline
among legislators, House of Representatives Speaker Akbar
Tandjung on Monday urged the lawmakers to abide by all existing
regulations by participating in all House meetings.

Akbar reminded all legislators about the internal regulations,
which were revised in October last year in a bid to improve
discipline.

"The physical presence of legislators needs to increase due to
the increasing number of tasks," Akbar said in his speech at a
plenary meeting, marking the opening of the House session after a
one-month recess period.

The message was unveiled a week after the media reported a
list of "lazy legislators" obtained from the House secretariat.

Ironically, many legislators missed Akbar's speech because
they were absent during Monday's plenary meeting. Only 258 out of
the 488 legislators attended the meeting on Monday, and that
after half an hour delay while waiting for enough members to
arrive in order to make a quorum.

Responding to criticism from the media, Isaac Latuconsina of
the military and police faction called on the secretariat-general
to give clearer explanations to reporters by giving the reasons
for the absences.

"I was absent from the House because I had to join a course at
Lemhanas (National Resilience Institute) for two months," he
argued.

Fellow legislator Slamet Supriyadi wondered if the journalists
had misquoted the secretariat-general, or if they had been given
false information.

Aisyah Aminy of the United Development Party (PPP) criticized
her own faction which had permitted its members to avoid any
meeting.

"I hope the faction will, in the future, no longer give any
permits to its members to shun meetings for a period of two to
three months," she said.

Legislators have shown a tendency to be near 100 percent
present when it comes to planning an overseas trip.