No guarantee exists to control budget: Minister
Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
None of the existing systems or officials can guarantee that irregularities in the management of state budget funds will not recur in the future, no matter how hard inspectors general within the ministries strive to control use of the funds, a state minister said on Tuesday.
Over the last three months, 17 ministries have tried to solve a total of 1,643 cases of budget irregularities causing potential losses of Rp 3.2 trillion during the 2000-2001 period, according to reports from the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK).
Last week, eight of the 17 ministries submitted reports on their efforts to the Office of the State Minister of Administrative Reforms -- which have been endorsed by the BPK -- demonstrating little success in the recovery of funds. They only managed to recover around 7 percent of the potential losses.
Another five submitted their reports on Tuesday, with inspectors general claiming that most of the cases had been closed. However, many cases are still being investigated and officials implicated have already been punished.
"It's difficult to guarantee that similar irregularities will not recur. The most important policy is to tighten monitoring on ministers and their subordinates in management of the budget," State Minister of Administrative Reforms Feisal Tamin said.
"I will also issue a circular to all the heads of state institutions asking them to take an active role in following up and solving all irregularities revealed either by state audit agencies or members of the public," Feisal said at his office.
BPK's reports revealed that projected losses of up to Rp 3.2 trillion were due to the disappearances of Rp 1.4 trillion from regional budgets, Rp 1.2 trillion from state-owned enterprises, Rp 608 billion from the state budget and Rp 1 billion from the Treasury Endowment Body.
Most of the cases, according to BPK, occurred because of administrative disorder, unrealistic project targets and inefficiency in using the budgets.
On Tuesday, inspector generals from the ministries of health, religious affairs, forestry, industry and trade, and maritime affairs and fisheries, said they believed that the ongoing supervision of their offices would help reduce the misuse of their routine expenses.
Ministry of Religious Affairs inspector general Muchtar Zarkasih admitted that most of the irregularities found at his ministry occurred through education projects conducted in Jakarta, West Java and Central Java.
He said his office had succeeded in recovering potential losses of Rp 48 million from a total of Rp 133 million in discrepancies and had accounted for another Rp 19.9 million from a Rp 22.2 million sum that should have been returned to state coffers.
"We have also recovered Rp 19.4 million from the cases of budget squandering totaling Rp 210 million, while we are still working out how to deal with Rp 6.29 billion in budget inefficiencies," he said.
Muchtar said none of the cases were prosecuted as all of them were the result of weaknesses in the ministry's administrative systems and procedures.
Ministry of Health inspector general Kuswartini claimed that she had often been assisted by the BPK and the Development and Finance Control Agency (BPKP) in supervising budget management.