Officials claim ignorance of gift for councillors

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)