Officials get no pay for 6 years

BANJARNEGARA, Central Java: At least 40 officials from three village administrations have gone on strike indefinitely because they have not received their salaries for six years.

The striking bureaucrats have reportedly disrupted administrative work in the villages of Tapen, Karangjambe and Kalilunjar.

As in other parts of Indonesia, Banjarnegara village officials receive agricultural land from the state to cultivate instead of cash as their "salary".

The Banjarnegara village bureaucrats lost their land in 1990 when the government turned their property into the Mrica reservoir. The officials have gotten neither substitute land nor cash as payments for their public services.

Most of the protesting officials go fishing in the Mrica reservoir for additional income, Antara reported yesterday.

Some of the strikers said the government has not fulfilled its promise to pay their salaries from the interest from the Rp 1 billion (US$425,000), received as land compensation, deposited in a bank owned by the regency.

Initially, the scheme ran smoothly. A village chief received Rp 150,000 a month and a village secretary Rp 90,000 a month.

The regency said the scheme flopped after the deposited money was borrowed and never paid back. (pan)