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.