President's nonbudgetary funds reviewed

President's nonbudgetary funds reviewed

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

President Megawati Soekarnoputri has decided to temporarily
freeze nonbudgetary funds, as their function and regulation
needed reviewing, the President's Secretary, Kemal Munawar, said
on Friday.

The nonbudgetary funds were introduced during the tenure of
former president Soeharto and they amounted to hundreds of
billions of rupiah. They were usually disbursed when the
president needed to provide emergency donations.

However, there have been no public reports on the existence of
such funds, nor from where, how much and what such a huge amount
of money was spent on.

"Because of that, the President has decided to freeze the
funds to allow time for further investigation. So, we haven't
accepted any income or spent any of the money since Ibu Megawati
took office," Kemal said.

He further explained that for years the funds were placed
under the authority of the State Secretariat and only during the
tenure of former president Abdurrahman Wahid were they placed
under the president's secretary.

"Usually, the funds were utilized when the president had to
make a donation for flood victims, for the construction of places
of worship or other kinds of grants during official trips. They
are more like emergency funds," Kemal added.

He declined to disclose the amount, saying only that they did
not reach trillions of rupiah as people had suspected.

Previously, it had been common practice in the Indonesian
government to have nonbudgetary funds. They were not recorded in
the State Budget, thereby were prone to misuse as there was no
control over their disbursement.

The funds were mostly collected from state-owned enterprises
or other financial sources in government institutions.

However, after the downfall of Soeharto, there had been
growing demands to examine the presence of such funding, which
ended up with the government deciding to scrap all kinds of
collections from state institutions.

During Abdurrahman's tenure, the government decided to stop
the collection but continued to use the available funds for
certain expenses, including repeated overseas trips.

Under the coming new structure of the State Secretariat, there
has not yet been any decision on where the funds should be placed
or how to regulate them.

Legislator from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle
(PDI Perjuangan) Sophan Sophiaan said that it was necessary to
have such funds as the president needed them, but it was
important that they were made accountable to the public.

"What is needed is public accountability. The public should
know the purpose and usage of such funds. All state income and
expenses should be recorded in the State Budget," he added.