House takes no stick to lazy legislators, cuts committees
House takes no stick to lazy legislators, cuts committees
Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The House of Representatives (DPR) failed on Monday to get
tough with its members who are facing mounting criticism for
being "lazy" when it comes to attendance at official meetings.
Asserting that punishment was the last resort, House deputy
speaker Tosari Widjaja said that the legislative body would
reduce each member's workload to allow them to attend more House-
sanctioned meetings.
"We will encourage the physical presence of legislators by re-
arranging the schedule of the meetings and trimming down the
number of special committees," Tosari told reporters after
presiding over a closed meeting of the House's steering
committee.
The statement contradicted earlier remarks by House Speaker
Akbar Tandjung who said that all factions had agreed to hand down
penalties to the lazy legislators.
According to Tosari, leaders of factions in the House were of
the same opinion that punishment would be administered if the
latest efforts failed.
The proposal to cut the number of House special committees
received unanimous support during the two-hour meeting. Each
legislator will now work for up to three committees when the
House sits.
A Golkar legislator, Priyo Budi Santoso, said that the
legislators were already overburdened with activities in their
respective commissions, not to mention jobs related to their
membership in various House committees and other House bodies.
"Last year, I worked for my commission, the House
administrative body and three different inquiry committees. It
was hard to attend all the meetings arranged by the various
bodies," he told The Jakarta Post.
It has been a common practice among legislators to sign the
attendance list of a meeting but skip it for various reasons.
The House's internal regulations revised last October require
legislators to attend all meetings.
Tosari added that the steering committee had also agreed to
avoid conflicting schedules of House meetings.
"If there is plenary meeting, there will be no other meeting
scheduled for the day," he said.
Many legislators have been using the meeting of inquiry
committees as an excuse for their absence from a plenary meeting
or other meetings.
The latest example of legislators' poor discipline came when
only 34 of the 76 members of the House steering committee showed
up for a meeting last week, resulting in a delay for failing to
reach the quorum.
"There will be no overlapping. There will be no more excuses
for legislators to avoid a meeting," Tosari said.
He admitted that the decision to reduce the number of House
committees would slow the deliberation of bills.
Tosari, however, said the situation would be a temporary one
as the House was looking at measures to improve the speed of the
passage of legislation through the House.