House urges govt to resolve fuel shortage, corruption
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The House of Representatives wrapped up its fourth session on Friday and issued scores of recommendations to the government with regards to fresh social issues.
The House hosted its last plenary session on Friday before its members go on trips to their constituents during a month-long recess, supposedly to familiarize them with how the House works when it is in session.
Only around 252 of its 550 members bothered to show up on Friday based on the attendance list, a figure that dropped to less than 120 after a prayer break.
The House will reconvene on Aug. 15.
During the session, it urged the government to immediately take appropriate actions to solve the problem of fuel scarcity, which has created hardships among the people in the form of soaring prices.
"We ask the government to quickly find solutions to this problem because it has a great effect on the public and causing a high-cost economy," House Speaker Agung Laksono said in his closing speech.
Concerning graft practices, the House underlined fresh cases discovered at state institutions, including the banking sector, Ministry of Religious Affairs and judiciary.
"We're deeply concerned about this, and demand all parties with the authority to step up coordination among themselves to avoid overlapping and come up with maximum results," Agung said.
This, he said, should be accompanied with a time limit to arrest the alleged perpetrators and optimizing the return of lost state assets.
Furthermore, Agung said, the House would push the government to focus its attention on working to resolve the emerging cases of diseases, such as polio, and malnutrition problems among children across the country.
"This is a national issue, and swift action is more than essential to minimize the possibility of a lost generation," he said.
The House endorsed the regulation in lieu of law No. 1/2005 on the postponement of Law No. 2/2004 on industrial conflict resolution.
It joined the revision of Law No. 36/2004 on 2005 state budget to become the only two bills that the House managed to endorse so far.
The House is scheduled to complete deliberation on 55 bills by December.
It currently is in the early stages of deliberating several bills with the government, including the national long-term development program 2005-2025, and mineral and coal mining.
Other bills on sports, on teachers, on witness protection and on the ombudsman have been drafted by the House and would later be deliberated with the government.
The House closed its fourth session with the controversy about the planned whopping increases in its members' allowances, which have both been criticized by many.