Mar'ie vows to find missing funds

Mar'ie vows to find missing funds

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Finance Mar'ie Muhammad vowed
yesterday to get to the bottom of a discrepancy in government
records regarding funds left over from the 1987 general election.

"I will send my staff to Bapeka (the Supreme Audit Board) to
study why the data on the remainder of the 1987 election funds
are different," he said at the end of a four-day hearing with the
Budgetary Commission of the House of Representatives.

At least Rp 2.6 billion ($1.1 million) of the state funds
reserved for the 1987 elections were left over after the
elections had been completed, he said.

The minister said all of the remaining election funds had been
returned to the state and that about Rp 670 million ($301,000) of
the sum had subsequently been used for the 1992 elections.

Sulaiman Biyahimo of the Golkar faction, however, disputed the
minister's data, saying that the elections committee had returned
only Rp 4.9 million of the leftover funds.

He said his figure came from the reports of Bapeka.

Sulaiman said that the discrepancy reflected more than a
bureaucratic error, but pointed to an improper use of the state
funds.

Budget

The three-day hearing was concerned with the 1992/1993 state
budget, which planned for a surplus of Rp 2.24 billion. Instead,
there was a deficit of about Rp 551.2 billion (US$220.54 million)
in 1992/1993.

The four factions of the House budgetary commission questioned
the minister about the shortfall but, at the conclusion of the
three-day hearing, the government's motion regarding a revision
of the 1992/1993 budget was unanimously approved without any
amendments.

Some legislators said that the deficit had been caused by
inconsistency on the government's part in following the budget
plan, which is traditionally proposed to the House before the
start of each fiscal year.

The minister said that the difference between the budget
estimate and the budget's realization was the result of time
lags.

"The discrepancy occurred because the estimate was made before
the end of the fiscal year," he said, adding that most of the
spending during the remainder of the year had been by the
strategic industries management board, which manages the IPTN
aircraft company, the Pindad military equipment factory and the
PAL ship-building company.(hen)