Legislators may hire assistants

Legislators may hire assistants

Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

In an drive to enhance legislators' performance, the
government has approved the House of Representative's proposal to
earmark a budget for 2003 for each legislator to hire an
assistant.

The job description of these assistants has not been drawn up
yet, however, according to a circular from the House secretariat,
"they (the assistants) will be placed at the offices of each
legislator and will receive an honorarium".

According to an official at the DPR secretariat who asked not
to be named, these assistants will receive Rp 2 million (US$220)
each month as an honorarium.

This means the state has to allocate some Rp 1 billion each
month to pay the legislator's assistants.

The decision was made on Dec. 30 -- when the House was still
in recess -- and each legislator has been asked to submit the
names of their proposed assistants to the House secretariat by
Jan. 17 at the latest.

The decision sparked immediate reactions from several civil
servants assigned at the House, with one of them saying that
"this decision may cause us to lose our jobs".

Currently, there are some 1,200 civil servants working at the
House, 500 of whom are assigned to assist legislators with
administrative tasks such as setting schedules, preparing books,
and other important data and helping legislators to make progress
reports.

"Some legislators hire skilled staff to assist them in
carrying out their tasks as politicians and legislators ... they
(the experts) also give inputs to lawmakers for important
decisions ... it has not affected us as each faction or
legislator is responsible to pay them an honorarium from their
own pocket.

"But the current decision will mean that these proposed
assistants will take over our task. Instead of recruiting new
staffers for these legislators, why doesn't the government
continue to subsidize the fuel, energy and telephone rates for
the people?", the civil servant who works for the Indonesian
Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) asked.

However, he also noted that the request for additional
assistants would be justifiable if it would enhance legislators'
performance.

This request, she noted, was better than their previous
request for an allowance to buy washing machines, for instance.