Legislators off to study Cairo despite criticism

Legislators off to study Cairo despite criticism

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Sixteen legislators plan to leave for the Egyptian capital of
Cairo for a "comparative study tour" on how the Egyptian
parliament's ways and means committee works, causing critics to
claim that the trip was only meant to exhaust remaining funds in
the foreign trips budget.

While it's not immediately clear how much money has been
designated for this specific trip, which will start on Dec. 11,
there remains Rp 10.13 billion (US$1 million), or 67.7 percent of
the total budget, of the 2005 overseas travel budget for
legislators.

The Cairo trip, which will be carried out by members of the
House of Representatives ways and means committee, has raised
questions as to whether it was really necessary, since there are
yet no clear issues to be addressed, no working programs and no
targets to be accomplished for the trip.

"There seems to be no acceptable reasoning for this trip, and
there's also no requirement for legislators to draw up a report
on what they wish to accomplish, let alone individual reports
upon returning home," said committee member Suryama Majana
Sastra, who has pulled out of the trip.

It has become a common practice for government departments and
House commissions to request too much funding for their annual
expenditures, just to find that only half of the budget has
actually been spent by the end of the year.

Such actions have adversely affected budget allocations for
other sectors, such as agriculture and education.

As the end of the budget year draws near, increasingly more
activities are undertaken in order to fully use up unused funds.

The budget for foreign trips for House members in 2004, for
example, was only 52.4 percent spent by the end of the year, and
it looks likely that this will be repeated this year.

Yet, the 2006 budget for such purposes had been more than
doubled from Rp 14.96 billion to Rp 31.46 billion.

"We factored in price and rate fluctuations, as well as living
standards in the destinations. But the thing is that the budgets
are exaggerated estimations. In practice, they 'forget' that the
figures are exaggerated, thus try to spend the entire sum for
made-up purposes," said Suryama.

The new figure also includes Rp 986.82 million for foreign
trips for the House's disciplinary body. The newly established
body did not get any allocations for this purpose in the 2005
budget.

However, it remains unclear why the body, which deals with
resolving disputes or cases involving House members, would need
to make foreign trips.

In the future, Suryama said, budgets should be drawn up based
on programs and competence, with publicly announced objectives.

Upon returning from a trip, legislators normally read a report
before the House plenary session on the results of the trip.

Nevertheless, as many legislators themselves have admitted,
there is never any obligation or effort to follow up reports with
concrete actions, thus most reports end up gathering dust on
shelves.

A number of House members were criticized several months ago
over a trip to the Netherlands and France. The members were
photographed carrying bulky shopping bags filled with branded
luxury goods in a department store.