Ministry lacks power, not cash: Walhi

Ministry lacks power, not cash: Walhi

Tb. Arie Rukmantara, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Increasing the allocation in the state budget for the Office of
the State Minister of Environment would not help much, an
environmentalist claimed on Wednesday, responding to the state
minister for environment's complaint about having the lowest
budget in Southeast Asia.

"What is the use of having a big budget if the state ministry
has no power? Its duty is to coordinate with other ministries to
formulate environmental-friendly government policy. To this
point, it has failed to do such a thing," the Indonesian Forum
for Environment (Walhi) executive director Chalid Muhammad told
The Jakarta Post.

Chalid said even with the amount of money in the current
budget, the ministry should be able to do more to protect the
country's rich natural resources.

"The problem is that it lacks power, not money," he said.

State Minister for Environment Rachmat Witoelar stated earlier
that his institution only were allocated 0.1 percent of the 2005
state budget, the lowest such allocation among Southeast Asian
countries.

"It is even smaller that Vietnam's environment ministry gets,
which is at 6 percent of the state budget," he said on Tuesday
during his visit to Makassar, South Sulawesi.

Rachmat also cited examples of other countries like China and
Germany, which spent about 5 percent of their state budget on the
environment.

The ministry's budget for this year totals Rp 218.1 billion,
or 0.1 percent of the 2005 state budget. Under the proposed 2006
state budget, the ministry will get a bit more (Rp 281.3 billion)
but that is still around 0.1 percent of the state budget.

Former environment minister Sonny Keraf, however, pointed out
that other ministries also had their own budget allocations for
environmental issues.

"What the minister said is not entirely correct. Almost every
ministry has a budget allocation specifically for environmental-
related issues. For example, the ministry of education has a huge
budget for environmental education programs," said Sonny, who is
also a member of the House of Representatives Commission VII on
environmental issues.

If such a variety of funding was pooled, he said, it could
reach almost 5 percent of the state budget.

However, he acknowledged that the budget allocation for the
state ministry should ideally reach between 5 percent and 6
percent of the state budget.

"That's why the commission VII has proposed an increase of the
ministry's budget by Rp 113 billion for next year," he said,
adding that the 2006 state budget would be finalized on Friday.

Sonny stressed that the money should be spent not merely for
promotion and campaign programs, but also for concrete and
measurable programs, such as cleaning up rivers in major cities
across the nation or rehabilitating mangrove areas along the Java
and Sulawesi coasts.