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.