Irregularities abound in draft city budget: NGOs

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Activists slammed the Rp 13.839 trillion (US$1.483 billion) draft city budget on Thursday, saying would be a gold mine for dodgy deals because it had not been allocated transparently.

"There have already been efforts to block public access to obtain the budget draft or to limit the public in providing input," the Coalition of Non-governmental Organizations Monitoring the City Budget said on Thursday.

Representatives of the coalition, which includes the Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency, Indonesian Corruption Watch, the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute and the Indonesian Consumers Foundation, met with the City Council Commission C on budgetary affairs on Thursday.

The allocation to the City Secretariat was an example of the flagrant misuse of public funds, the representatives said. Instead of only channeling funds to institutions such as the Indonesian Red Cross, NGOs, public hospitals, youth groups and city soccer club Persija, it was also giving "financial assistance" to political parties, the Indonesian Military and a group called the Forum of City Strategic Studies -- all destinations that were prone to irregularities, the group said in a statement.

The financial assistance to the military, meanwhile, had no legal basis since the law required only the state government to fund the military, the activists said.

In the draft, the administration has allocated Rp 14.684 billion for political parties, Rp 5.15 billion for the military, Rp 6.5 billion for the forum and Rp 75 billion for unexpected spending.

It also allocated another Rp 1.154 billion for councillors whose five-year terms had already ended on Aug. 25.

"These councillors are not entitled to receive severance allowances. Worse still, the funds would be taken from the 2005 budget," the coalition said.

It also criticized other extra payouts given to councillors for performing certain tasks, saying the work should be treated as part of their ordinary jobs.

The city plans to share out Rp 5.544 billion among the councillors that discussed the governor's accountability report and Rp 22.176 billion for the deliberation of the city budget draft and development plan.

"Therefore, we call on the council to transfer these funds which are prone to corruption and misuse to other sectors that have a direct positive impact on people -- like education and health," it said.

"We also urge the council to allow the public to give their input during the budget deliberation as is in line with Law No. 32/2004 on city administrations."

The activists criticized the administration for allocating only 7 percent of its budget to social and cultural affairs, with the lion's share going to administrative spending.

The city had also allocated Rp 23.1 billion to ensure council workers could evict those illegally squatting on public land, they said.