Officials claim ignorance of gift for councillors

JAKARTA (JP): Senior city officials claimed on Friday they have no idea and had never been informed by Governor Sutiyoso about the alleged Rp 850 million (US$95,000) fund Sutiyoso gave to 85 city councillors a few days after the governor delivered his revised accountability speech.

Deputy Governor for Administrative Affairs Abdul Kahfi and City Secretary Fauzi Bowo insisted that they only learned of the matter from several dailies which ran the story on Friday.

Kahfi said: "I cannot tell you anything about it because I did not know. The fund was never discussed at governmental affairs."

According to Fauzi, any funds from the city budget or off budget to be used or spent, including by the governor, should have been with his knowledge. He vowed that he never knew about this questionable issue.

"I was shocked when journalists asked about this. I did not know that the money was present," Fauzi said.

The alleged careless maneuver of Sutiyoso "to give" Rp 10 million cash to each to the 85 councillors, many said, could be a harmful boomerang for his career as he has already made local headlines for allocating huge funds from the 2000 city budget for the procurement of land and cars for the councillors.

Under that scheme, aimed at enhancing their "quality of living", each of the councillors would receive Rp 200 million for land and another Rp 90 million for cars.

In the latest money maneuvers, the governor was said to have handed Rp 10 million to each of the councillors. The motive behind the gift remains unclear, and Sutiyoso was still on an overseas trip to China until Tuesday next week.

But Kahfi suspected a possibility that the money might have come from the budget's tactical fund for the governor.

In his capacity as governor, Sutiyoso has the right to use the money at his own discretion.

The tactical fund is an off-budget fund, allocated for all top government officials and can be used without any requirement to explain its uses to the public.

"The governor might not have violated any rules here, but as I said I did not know anything about it," Kahfi underlined.

Many councillors confirmed the matter and dubbed the Sutiyoso gift as an "incentive".

Councillor Dani Anwar disclosed that they were offered the Rp 10 million incentive several days after Sutiyoso read his revised accountability speech before the city council on Aug. 22.

The councillors, who rejected his first speech, finally agreed to accept Sitiyoso's accountability speech on Sept. 4.

"On the transmittal was written 'a gift from Sutiyoso due to an increase in city revenue', and there was the official stamp of the city council secretariat on the receipt," Dani from the Justice Party told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

He said that his party had initially sought clarification about the money with the council's secretariat, which later explained that it was an incentive from the city administration because of an increase in city revenue.

"However, this is an unusual cash distribution because incentives like this were never provided for the councillors before, he remarked.

"Our faction actually questioned the money, but there are only four of us in the city council, other councillors seemed to disagree with our action (to question the matter).

So we just kept the money in the drawer," Dani said further.

Taking the money would only tarnish the image of the councillors, he said.

Another councillor, Maringan Pangaribuan, from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) said that he never received any money and maybe it was given through his faction chairman.

"I heard about it but so far I haven't received anything. Usually all business concerning the council secretariat is handled by the faction chairman," Maringan said.

Councillor from the National Mandate Party, Tjuk Sudono said every faction had indeed received the money.

The money, he said, has nothing to do with Sutiyoso's accountability speech but was given to mark the first anniversary of the city council.

"In our faction, the money was used to finance some of us continuing our studies and I guess there is nothing wrong with it," Tjuk said. (dja)