Lampung governor urged to announce budget audit

Lampung governor urged to announce budget audit

Oyos Saroso, The Jakarta Post, Bandarlampung

Legislators, non-governmental networks and observers have called
on the Lampung provincial administration to release the results
of the Government Audit Agency (BPKP) report on the province's
2001 budget which found alleged irregularities.

Abdul Hakim, a legislator from the Lampung chapter of the
Justice Party (PK), said here on Saturday that Lampung Governor
Oemarsono was obliged to show how it had spent the province's
budget in order to maintain its administration's accountability
and to win local people's political support.

"To be transparent, the government should unveil the audit's
results to the provincial legislature because the people want to
know how the 2001 budget was used," he said.

He said the provincial legislature had the authority to get
the audit's results and examine whether the budget was used in
accordance with the regulations.

"Something wrong must have happened because the governor
declines to unveil the audit's results," he said.

In a plenary session with the provincial legislative council,
Oemarsono said he was ready to hand over the audit's results to
the legislature's leadership with the condition that its secrecy
was kept. He said he would not reveal the audit's results to the
public for confidential and human rights reasons.

Muzakir Noor, another Justice Party legislator, said the
governor's excuses were groundless as the people had the right to
know what the government did and was doing.

"The audit's result is not a secret document but an important
report the people have the right to access for transparency," he
said.

He said the legislature had the right to access to the report
as part of its control function to allow the administration to
make necessary changes in the future.

A majority of the 45-member legislature agreed in the plenary
session not to ask for the report, saying it was the state's
secret document.

The Alliance of Lampung NGOs said they would stage a
demonstration at the provincial legislature compound next week to
press the legislature to check the audit's result.

"All financial leakages from the 2001 budget must be
investigated to help cleanse the bureaucracy, including the
governor, of corruption," the NGOs alliance said in a press
release here on Saturday.

Armen Yasir, a law expert from Lampung University, said the
legislature could file a lawsuit against the governor in the
State Administrative Court if any irregularities were found in
the 2001 budget.

"The problem is that the legislature has agreed not to check
the audit's result," he said.

He said the governor should allow the public to know the
audit's result in an attempt to phase out any suspicions on his
administration and to create a clean government.