Mentality of House members
Mentality of House members
From Pikiran Rakyat
I was saddened upon reading a Dec. 4 article by Mr. Atang Ruswita in Pikiran Rakyat regarding a proposal that the Wisma Randang should be set up as a place where members of the House of Representatives and ministry officials engaged in legislative discussions could spend the night.
This reminds me of a statement made by Cak Nun or Emha Ainun Nadjib in a certain tabloid: "The tradition of house members receiving money, rings, access to companies and anything else under the guise of various names is none other than the result of a 'poverty syndrome'. The most extreme manifestations of this 'poverty syndrome' are not found in the lives of millions of poor people but mainly in those of wealthy and powerful people."
Isn't discussing a bill or performing other relevant tasks indeed the job of House members? As public representatives, House members must carry out their obligations, right?
Aside from their obligations, House members also enjoy certain rights and various facilities, don't they? And, isn't the time allocated for the discussion of a particular bill planned out ahead of time?
House members earn a salary and are given other funds to carry out tasks, which include drawing up bills. So, if House members receive other forms of payment for doing what is in fact their job, this is obviously corruption.
The use of funds from Jamsostek, the state-owned social security company, to facilitate House members' discussion of a bill is not simply a matter of making their deliberation more peaceful and comfortable.
Many Indonesians have been infected by viruses more lethal than AIDS: bribery, collusion and corruption. High-ranking government officers and power holders in our country have contracted a disease which seems incurable: the 'poverty syndrome'. Cak Nun describes this as a mentality in which a person feels he or she never has enough of something.
Pak Atang, a former House member, perhaps knows how the Rp 3.1 billion -- or Rp 7.1 billion as rumored -- in Jamsostek funds allocated for the discussion of the manpower bill were used in covering accommodation, and food and drink expenses for House members.
It is ironic that House members were able to enjoy the funds collected from the wages of workers even though these same members have never contributed to the Jamsostek fund. This astounding amount of money has in fact been used to "beat" workers.
As a political layman, I can only come to the conclusion that this case of the "utilization" of Jamsostek funds seems to confirm a long-harbored suspicion that bribery and grease money is common for the people's representatives. It is indeed saddening that people contract such a chronic syndrome.
SONY MUCHTAR
Bandung, West Java