Officials blame each other over foreign trips
Officials blame each other over foreign trips
JAKARTA (JP): The City Council and city administration blamed
each other on Tuesday for the ineffectiveness of the councillors'
foreign trips following recent "complaint" letters from
Indonesian consulates.
Chairman of the council Edy Waluyo accused the city
administration's intercity cooperation office, which arranges the
foreign trips, as the cause for the ineffectiveness of the trips.
"Since they are government to government visits, they should
be handled by the intercity cooperation office. That's why we did
not make any preparation for the trips," Edy said.
He regretted that the office did not make an effort to contact
the consulates long before the councillors embarked on the trips.
He said since the office only gave the consulates a short
notice, the latter could not arrange meetings between the
councillors and the local officials concerned.
But although the trips have been criticized by the public, Edy
refused to cancel them, saying they had already been arranged.
He promised better preparation for future comparative studies.
He claimed several councillors of the council's Commission A
for legal and administrative affairs who departed for Tokyo on
Sunday had been preparing for the trip since two months ago.
"In future, we will be more transparent regarding the trips'
objectives and inform the media on their results," Edy said.
The city administration had received last week letters from
the Los Angeles and Madrid consulates saying the councillors'
visits were not effective due to a lack of preparation.
Due to their failure to meet local officials concerned, the
councillors apparently spend their time visiting tourist
destinations in the two cities last month.
Separately, city administration spokesman Muhayat denied that
the city's intercity cooperation office was to blame for the
ineffectiveness of the trips.
"The council only gives the office a short notice, about a
week before the councillors are to go abroad. So the office
cannot make adequate preparations. As we were pressed for time,
we can only inform the consulates about the councillors' trips,"
Muhayat said.
He said the council ought to notify the office one month
before the councillors went abroad, thereby giving the office
enough time to make the necessary preparations.
Meanwhile, a city administration official who requested
anonymity, questioned the council's effort to defend the
existence of the intercity cooperation office.
The official said, in the draft bylaw of the city
administration's new structural organization, the administration
had proposed the office be closed for efficiency reasons.
"Why don't the councillors want the office closed if they are
blaming it for the trips inefficiency?" he said, adding that the
bylaw is still being discussed at the council. (jun)