Police yet to be paid for MPR session

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) Annual Session finished on Friday but the police had yet to receive funds from the Finance Ministry for the security operation, Jakarta Police Chief Ins. Gen. Sofjan Yacoeb revealed.

"The Ministry of Finance has yet to pay operational costs spent during the People's Consultative Assembly Annual Session," Sofjan told reporters at the city police headquarters.

The nine-day session cost Rp 18 billion in total.

Sofjan said the city police had to borrow some Rp 1.5 billion from National Police Headquarters to help finance the operation.

He said police had asked for Rp 6 billion to fund operational costs during the Annual Session.

The money was mainly to buy meals and to provide allowances for officers deployed to secure the session, Sofjan said.

"The allowance will be extended to the police officers right after the disbursement," he said.

The police had earlier received Rp 500 million from the city administration, he said. The money had been spent on meals for the officers.

Separately, Second Insp. Bambang Tulus W., one of 5,600 police personnels deployed to secure the Session, said that he did not always receive an operation allowance.

"If we do receive the allowance, it is given weeks after we conduct the operation," he said.

"The amount of money was not much. For instance, to safeguard the MPR Special Session last year, we were only given a Rp 65,000 allowance after weeks of tiring operations," he said, adding that he was not sure if he would receive an allowance this year.

There were a few demonstrations during the session but they tended to be small and peaceful.