Legislators continue their dismal attendance record
Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Despite strong criticism of their performance, members of the House of Representatives (DPR) remained stubbornly undisciplined on Tuesday, skipping a scheduled plenary meeting for reasons known only to them.
Only 122 of the 500 legislators in the DPR were present on Tuesday when the House was about to approve the nominations of Bunbunan Hutapea and Aslim Tadjuddin as Bank Indonesia deputy governors.
The plenary meeting, chaired by Deputy House Speaker Soetardjo Soerjogoeritno of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), endorsed their nominations anyway despite the apparent poor attendance of DPR members.
Later, their numbers went down to just 87 when the meeting endorsed a proposal on the establishment of four regencies in North Maluku province.
Staff members of the House Secretariat reported earlier that 251 legislators had signed the attendance list, prompting Soetardjo to open the plenary meeting.
The legislators' poor performance reminded the public of a similar scene last March when only 49 legislators were around to give their final approval to the crucial money laundering bill.
The low level of discipline of legislators was to blame for the House's failure to meet its legislation target in the previous session. Of 24 bills put forward as a priority, the House only finished three bills.
It has become a common habit among legislators to sign the attendance list and leave immediately for their personal business. This habit has worried House leaders who, based on the House's internal rules, have no authority to impose penalties.
Soetardjo acknowledged on Tuesday that House leaders had issued five petitions to party and faction leaders to impose penalties on undisciplined members.
"We have cautioned the parties and factions five times, but nothing has happened," Soetardjo complained.
House Speaker Akbar Tandjung, a suspect in a Rp 40 billion graft scandal, echoed Soetardjo's concerns, but was uncertain about penalties that could be meted out against undisciplined legislators.
A similar concern was voiced by PDI Perjuangan's legislator Panda Nababan, who said that it was hard for each commission or plenary meeting to reach a quorum for a meeting to commence.
"This is terrible. But I don't know why," Panda said.
Djoko Susilo from the National Mandate Party (PAN) raised an excuse, saying that various duties assigned to legislators were to blame for their poor attendance in plenary meetings.
"It is impossible for legislators to attend all the legislative meetings," said Djoko, one of the legislators who signed the attendance sheet but did not join the plenary session.
He argued that he had to skip the plenary meeting to attend a meeting of a 12-strong team to verify documents of Presidential Aid Funds provided by State Secretary Bambang Kesowo and the deliberation of the broadcasting bill.
Soetardjo and Akbar said the situation could possibly force legislators to revive the "recall" system which was misused during the New Order regime to remove government critics from the legislature.
The recall system, Soetardjo added, would give authority to executive boards of each party to dismiss undisciplined legislators.