House tells govt to improve budget monitoring system
House tells govt to improve budget monitoring system
JAKARTA (JP): The House of Representatives urged the
government on Wednesday to ensure transparency and tight
monitoring of budget spending in the 1999/2000 fiscal year in
order to prevent leakage of public funds.
Legislators in the House's Commission VIII for state budget
and finance said that the prudent state budget for the upcoming
fiscal year, which begins in April, would be useless if the
government did not tightly monitor its spending.
The spokesman for the Indonesian Democratic Party's faction in
the House, Nico Daryanto, said government officials who
personally profited from lucrative and collusive deals in the
past should not repeat such practices.
"Let's open our eyes to our biggest challenge: the men behind
the gun," Nico said during a hearing of the commission, which was
attended by finance minister Bambang Subianto.
"No matter how good we are, if the men behind the gun are
incapable, undisciplined and have the characteristics of
criminals, we will never achieve our goals," he stated.
The government should create a monitoring system and enact
disciplinary actions for any defaults, he added.
In a move which was never seen during the 32-year autocratic
regime of former president Soeharto, the House revised the draft
budget proposed by the government in January. The revisions
include a 15 percent to 50 percent salary increase for civil
servants and changes in other expenditures.
These changes will increase the budget for the next fiscal
year to Rp 219.6 trillion from the Rp 218.2 trillion initially
proposed by the government.
In the past, the House merely rubber-stamped the annual budget
after a few weeks of perfunctory debates.
The government agreed to lower its budget appropriation for
the bank recapitalization program to Rp 17 trillion from the Rp
18 trillion it had earlier proposed. It also agreed to cut a
further Rp 500 billion in planned expenditures.
The government also revised its revenue target from the excise
duty on cigarettes, raising it by Rp 800 billion to Rp 10.16
trillion in the next fiscal year. It also increased estimated
nontax revenue -- mainly dividends from state companies -- by Rp
700 billion to Rp 26.49 trillion.
The revised draft budget now awaits approval from the House of
Representatives plenary session scheduled for Friday.
Noviarman Kailani of the House's dominant Golkar faction urged
the government to trace funds belonging to charity foundations
led by Soeharto. These funds were accumulated during Soeharto's
tenure through the issuance of presidential and ministerial
decrees.
The funds should be claimed by the government as nontax
revenue to help finance the bank recapitalization program,
Noviarman said.
Many of Soeharto's charity foundations accumulated money
through graft-tainted business deals as well as abuses of power.
The former president has been questioned by the attorney
general over the alleged misuse of the foundations' funds.
The faction of the Armed Forces in the House said on Wednesday
the government must increase revenues from all sectors,
especially the forestry and mining sectors.
It also called on the government to "fight" to obtain debt
relief from its foreign creditors in order to reduce the debt
burden on future generations. (das)