Lack of trasnparancy at House opens door for graft

Lack of trasnparancy at House opens door for graft

Tony Hotland, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Closing budget talks in the House of Representatives to the
public enables lawmakers to engage in corruption, it was
concluded at a discussion held following reports of the alleged
"sale" of government relief funds.

Other things that facilitate corruption is the House's
powerful authority in determining budget figures as well as the
bureaucracy within the House, discussion participants said on
Friday.

Legislature watchdog Formappi secretary-general Sebastian
Salang said the three conditions were designed in such a way that
they allowed corruption and collusion to thrive at the
legislature.

"One is the fact that the House indeed has the biggest voice
to determine the state budget. Then comes the exclusivity of the
talks, which are closed to the public, thus enabling anyone,
including brokers who have links to House members, to trade the
information," he said.

Also, he added, bureaucracy within the House had forced local
officials to pay fees to legislators to speed up deliberations
and disbursements of funds for their regions.

"With the authority to propose fund amounts and to revise
government proposals, there is room for any House member to
promise a specific budget amount to local officials and get a
percentage," Sebastian argued.

The time-worn practice of House members promising a specified
budget amount to local officials for a percentage of the amount
met a small, but promising obstacle when one legislator publicly
revealed last week a document containing the names of lawmakers
and amounts of relief funds, along with names of the areas they
were allegedly "coordinating".

And it is not only the public that is shut out of budgetary
meetings. Some legislators are too, especially those who are not
members of the budgetary commission.

The commission, along with the Ministry of Finance,
deliberates the state budget with the authority to approve,
disapprove, revise and propose new figures.

Legislator Zainul Majdi, who was among those attending the
discussion, also bemoaned the fact that the public was barred
from state budget deliberations.

"Access to non-budgetary commission members is limited, and
this, I feel, is kind of designed to give just a few the
privilege of knowing about budget issues," he said.

Acknowledging the situation, budgetary commission member
Tamsil Linrung said he once experienced the closed-door policy,
although from the government's side.

Furthermore, he said, the practice of selling funds had been
around for a long time but was difficult to prove due to lack of
hard evidence.

"We can sense it but can't prove it. That's why we established
a special verification team within the budgetary commission that
double checks and verifies any budget proposals from the
government," he said.

Zainul, who is a House disciplinary committee member, said the
committee was seriously investigating the corruption allegations,
adding that involving legal authorities, such as the police or
the Corruption Eradication Commission, was feasible.

Concerning one relief fund case involving some Rp 1.97
trillion (US$191.26 million), Tamsil said there had been no money
disbursed to date and that the committee had in fact returned the
proposal to the government for revision.