NGOs accuse council of budget mark up

NGOs accuse council of budget mark up

Rendi A. Witular, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency (FITRA) and Jakarta
Parliament Watch (JPW) announced on Monday that the City Council
had marked up its operational budget allocation by up to Rp 68.37
billion (US$7.24 million) in the 2002 City Budget.

Speaking at the "City Councillor and the Waste of City Budget"
seminar at Hotel Wisata, Central Jakarta, both nongovernmental
organizations revealed their findings that the most significant
markups had been found in health expenditure and official
traveling.

Both FITRA and JPW have been carrying out intensive research
on the budget since 2000, based on Government Regulation No.
109/2000, which stipulates the fund allocation for legislative
bodies. The regulation states that the allocation must be based
on regional revenues.

A province with a regional revenue of Rp 15 billion must
allocate between Rp 150 million and 1.75 percent of the Rp 15
billion for the legislative budget. Provinces with revenues of
more than Rp 500 billion must allocate between Rp 1.25 billion
and 0.15 percent of their revenue.

As Jakarta's annual revenue totals Rp 3.5 trillion, the
capital should have allocated Rp 52.5 billion. In fact the city
has allocated Rp 88.37 billion, far more than the allocation
allowed by the regulation.

Given that the budget is over the limit as stipulated by the
regulation, FITRA spokesman, Jammarudin, accused the council of
wasting Rp 68.37 billion, saying the budget should only have been
Rp 20 billion at the most.

"The large discrepancy in the figures show that there were
irregularities between the city administration and councillors in
preparing the city budget. We have found that there was a
conspiracy between the administration and the council to satisfy
certain vested interests, which are the political parties," he
said.

Jammarudin disclosed the markup in the health allocation.

"The administration allocated Rp 6 billion annually for
healthcare insurance for the 84 councillors. When we calculated
it, based on an assumption that the councillors would have gold
health insurance, the administration should only have allocated
Rp 528 million," he said, stating that the number of councillors
had reduced from the original 85 after councillor Azis Boeang of
the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle died.

Jammarudin also pointed out that the allocation for traveling
was marked up from Rp 5.36 billion to Rp 6.6 billion.

Both FITRA and JPW pointed out the markup and the budget
allocation leakages were to enrich the pockets of political
parties as they needed money to face the 2004 general election.

"They desperately need the money for their campaign budgets
for the 2004 election. That's why they have abused their tenure
to acquire as much cash as they can," said JPW spokesman Ivan
Prapat.