Public angered by Rp 5.4b farewell gift

Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan, North Sumatra

Tens of thousands of residents of Medan have strongly opposed a recent plan by the local government to give 45 members of Medan's legislative council a pension fund amounting to Rp 120 million (US$14,118) each.

According to several residents here, the "farewell donation" was far too generous, compared to their far from satisfactory performance.

Most residents have been demanding the Medan municipality to drop the plan because the councillors were already very well paid.

Each councillor receives Rp 14 million per month (US$1,647), plus many, many lucrative benefits, including housing.

Syafril, 32, a resident of Medan Baru subdistrict, called on the government on Wednesday to pay more attention to the plight of the tens of thousands of desperately poor people instead of the already wealthy legislators who had done nothing in their five years.

The pension fund would only enrich the legislators at the expense of the poor people, he asserted.

Syafril, a rice trader, added that the legislators did not deserve such a large amount of money, taken from public funds, including his.

The plan, they said, was extremely upsetting because the legislators rarely sided with the people they are supposedly representing and had done nothing more than rubber stamp administration policy.

Syafril cited several decisions by the councillors that imposed so many burdens on public, including the one that endorsed the government decree to raise parking fees from Rp 1,000 to Rp 7,500 per hour along several busy streets in Medan.

"We rarely see that the councillors have fought for the people's interests. They only fight on behalf of the government and for their own financial interests," said Syafril.

Jhon Tafbu Ritonga, a lecturer at the North Sumatra University (USU), said the extra payments using taxpayer money was not fair and was completely insensitive to the fact that most citizens had not recovered from the economic crisis.

Meanwhile, Ibrahim Sakti Batubara, the deputy speaker of the council, refused to comment on the protest, saying that the matter had already been discussed, but only with members of municipal administration.

Ibrahim said that the pension fund would be disbursed by the government in April 2004 at the latest, when the councillors would end their 5-year terms.

Separately, the mayor of Medan, Abdillah, said that despite its unpopularity with the people of Medan, the decision was good. He said the councillors deserved the Rp 120 million because they had worked hard during their terms and served the people by helping spur development.

The Medan council has 45 members, so the total amount of budget money that will be given to them will be Rp 5.4 billion (US$635,300).