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.