Irregularities in budget spending 17 percent: BPK
Muninggar Sri Saraswati and Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) revealed on Tuesday it had discovered 758 cases of irregularities in the use of the state budget amounting to Rp 6.421 trillion (US$710 million) between January and June of this year, or 17 percent of the total value of spending being investigated.
But BPK said it had yet to see any follow-up on the findings, including punishment for the guilty parties.
"The House should exert control over the bureaucracy regarding various improper expenditures before deciding to approve the proposed state budget revision for fiscal 2003," BPK deputy chairman I Gede Artjana told The Jakarta Post after holding a close-door meeting with House Commission I on political, security and foreign affairs at his office.
The meeting was held to discuss a request from the Ministry of Defense to raise its budget from Rp 16.162 trillion (US$18 million) last year to Rp 19.487 trillion in 2003.
Artjana said the House had failed to follow up on the BPK's findings and impose stern sanctions against the bureaucrats involved.
"This country's legal system has various laws for various violations, but I don't see a determination on the part of the House to maximize its efforts (to bring the perpetrators to court)," Artjana said.
Irregularities were found in the Indonesian embassies in Singapore and Beijing involving Rp 14,501 million, and the Ministry of Forestry (Rp 27,511 million).
The BPK also found irregularities in the use of Rp 4.2 billion of foreign borrowings intended for providing export credit facilities in the Ministry of Defense, the Indonesian Military and the National Police.
The Air Force topped the list, with irregularities amounting to 100 percent of its total Rp 745 million budget allocation. The Army, perceived as the most corrupt, was found to have misused Rp 250 million, or 18.3 percent, of its budget.
Regarding non-budgetary funds, the BPK found irregularities in the Ministry of Religious Affairs (Rp 3,564 million) and the Presidential Aid Fund (Banpres) (Rp 23,678 million).
The amount was far lower than that of the previous year, when state and regional offices and state enterprises were reported to have misused Rp 36.5 trillion of state funds.
Only a few of the cases were taken to court.
BPK chairman Satrio Budihardjo "Billy" Joedono once complained that the government -- from the time of the New Order era up to the present day -- had never followed up on the BPK's audit reports.
Artjana meanwhile said that Government Regulation No. 30/1980 on the civil service provides for administrative sanctions against bureaucrats. These included dismissal should they fail to improve their professionalism.
"There are other laws, such as the Criminal Code and the Anticorruption Law, that allow law enforcers to bring bureaucrats before the court if they are suspected of misusing state funds," Artjana said.
Much lip service has been paid to the need to eradicate graft and corruption since the end of the New Order era, but few real results have been yielded so far.