Legislators call on KPU members to eschew tenders

Legislators call on KPU members to eschew tenders

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

House of Representatives legislators called on the General
Elections Commission (KPU) to stay away from goods procurement
tenders and instead focus on making policies that will ensure the
success of the 2004 polls.

Agun Gunandjar Sudarsa of the Golkar faction and Tjetje
Hidayat Padmawinata of the Indonesian National Unity (KKI)
faction said all tenders should be handled by the KPU's
secretariat.

They said this was common practice in other state
institutions, which always leave procurement tenders to their
secretariats.

"If the KPU members continue to handle tenders, they will be
misusing their power," Agun said during a meeting between members
of House Commission II for legal affairs and KPU members in
Central Jakarta.

"Restrict the duties of the KPU members to policy making and
supervision," Tjetje said, reminding the KPU members of the oath
they took when they were sworn in not to get personally involved
in any tender process.

In response, KPU chairman Nazaruddin Sjamsuddin said the
involvement of KPU members in tenders was part of the KPU's
direct supervision of the tender process.

"So, it is not true that we just sit in on the tender
process," he said.

The KPU will open a number of tenders, including for
information technology infrastructure, ballot boxes, voting
registration paper and ballot papers, with a total value of more
than Rp 1 trillion (US$110 million).

KPU has recently come under fire for sending six of its
members to the United States, Canada and several European
countries to disseminate information to Indonesian voters living
there.

There are more than 143 million eligible voters at home, while
only about two million Indonesian are expected to register as
overseas voters.

On another subject, the dispute over the allocation of seats
in the House, Commission II chairman Agustin Teras Narang said
the KPU should settle the matter because it was unlikely the
House would be able to amend the election law.

Teras said revising the law was not feasible due to time
constraints.

"We need one more meeting with the KPU to decide whether or
not the planned revision can proceed," he said after the meeting
with the KPU members.

The House is in recess and will resume its sitting on Monday
next week.

The KPU has asked for an amendment to the election law to
increase the number of House seats to 560 for the upcoming
legislative election, in a bid to accommodate the interests of
Maluku, North Sulawesi and Papua, following regional splits
there. The law stipulates the House will have 550 seats.

The elections commission has cut the number of House seats on
offer in the three provinces in next year's legislative elections
as a result of the regional divisions there, in spite of a ruling
in the election law which bans the reduction in the number of
seat.

Maluku, for example, will receive just three seats in the
House in 2004 compared to six in 1999, due to the creation of
North Maluku province, which will also have three House seats.

This unresolved issue has prevented the KPU from announcing
the final distribution of the House seats and the electoral
district map, except for the map in Java.