KPU must follow aarket price: Expert
KPU must follow aarket price: Expert
Moch. N. Kurniawan and M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta
An expert called on the General Elections Commission (KPU)
Tuesday to use the market price as the benchmark for ballot
printing costs amid growing indications that the previous
printing price was too expensive.
"We realize that businesses should earn a profit in printing
ballot papers, but they should not just take this chance to get
an extraordinarily high profit," Supervision deputy chairman at
the Development and Finance Control Agency (BPKP) Djoko Susilo
said.
"The fairest price for both sides (KPU and businesses) is the
market price," he explained to The Jakarta Post on the sidelines
of a seminar on logistical preparations for the presidential
election held by Indonesian Procurement Watch (IPW).
Djoko is the formulation team chairman of the presidential
decree No 16/1994 and 18/2000 on goods procurement and the
supervisor for the formulation of the new presidential decree No.
80/2003 on goods procurement.
The KPU has planned to print ballot papers for the July 5
presidential election mainly by using sheet machine, which is fed
by cut plain paper.
Around 160 million ballot papers will be printed for the
election.
With six presidential and vice presidential candidate pairs
registered with the KPU, it is likely that the ballot paper will
be 28 centimeters by 41 centimeters.
Meanwhile, one printing firm, Stacopa Raya, said it could
print 28 cm by 41 cm full color papers at the price of Rp 40 per
page.
"This price does not include the negative template and the
blank sheet of paper, which you (KPU) must provide to us," Mahmud
H.S. of Stacopa Raya said.
Stacopa is one of the printing firms that won the printing
order from the KPU to print ballot counting forms for the April 5
legislative election.
Separately, under an early investigation, what does this mean?
Vivi, an official from Winkarya Lintas Persada, which was among
the winners of the last election's ballot paper tender, said her
firm could give customers a price of Rp 75 to print paper with
the size of 34 cm by 50 cm in full color.
"We can't go lower than that price," she said.
In the legislative election, the KPU decided to print ballot
papers of various sizes with an average price set at Rp 275 per
page.
The ballot paper size for the legislative election included 48
cm by 80.5 cm, 55 cm by 80.5 cm and 58 cm by 80.5 cm.
However, experts have repeatedly criticized the KPU for
determining the price to print ballot paper in the last election,
saying that the price should be around Rp 100 per page.
Separately, the KPU had decided to maintain the use of
computerized tabulations in the ballot counting for the
presidential election, despite the public criticism of it in
April.
KPU chairman Nazaruddin Syamsudin, however, said that the
computerized tabulation would be used only as a support method
for the manual count.
"Data from the computerized tabulation will be used only for
comparison purposes, aside from records from the polling
stations," Nazaruddin said in a press briefing here.
He claimed that the extended use of the computerized
tabulation was decided by the KPU only after taking the public
demand into account.
"The public really appreciated the use of the computerized
tabulation in the legislative elections, especially in the first
days of counting. It could only be done with the help of
information technology (IT)," he said.