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.