Puncak meeting goes ahead despite being 'ineffective'

Ahmad Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Puncak, West Java

Three months ago, the City Council was criticized for conducting a meeting on the 2002 draft city budget at the city- owned Wisma Jaya Raya resort in Cipayung, in the Puncak hill resort area south of Jakarta.

On Wednesday, however, most of the 85 city councillors traveled to Puncak again for a similar reason -- this time to discuss Governor Sutiyoso's 2001 budget statement. They will return to Jakarta on Thursday.

"This two-day meeting will definitely be ineffective. We'll need at least nine days to thoroughly discuss it (budget statement) and ferret out any irregularities," councillor Agus Dharmawan of the National Mandate Party (PAN) told reporters in Puncak.

He said the reason several councillors had agreed to participate in the meeting was because the trip had already been arranged by the council's consultative team.

Councillor Ugiek Soegihardjo of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) echoed Agus' opinion that the meeting would be ineffective, especially given the large number of participants.

But Ugiek, a member of the council's Commission B for economic affairs, rejected the idea that councillors would collude with officials so as to secure the approval of the budget statement.

"If we find any irregularities in the budget, we'll question them for sure," he said.

The councillors were gathering to examine the city budget based on Sutiyoso's budget statement before determining their stance over it.

Sutiyoso will need the councillors' approval for his budget statement if he wants to have any chance in the upcoming gubernatorial election in October.

Council secretariat officials declined to mention the cost of staging the meeting.

But during January's meeting, the council spent Rp 1.5 billion (US$156,413) on the councillors' accommodation and allowances.

The 2002 city budget has allocated a total of Rp 17.8 billion solely for the holding of such meetings and other sessions related to Sutiyoso's accountability statement later this year.

Mayors from the five Jakarta mayoralties and the Kepulauan Seribu (Thousand Islands) regent also attended Wednesday's meeting along with officials from city agencies and offices.

All the five meeting halls in the resort were packed with the officials and their subordinates. They were grilled by councillors from five commissions.

The councillors repeatedly argued that the meeting in Puncak was needed since their four-story council building on Jl. Kebon Sirih, Central Jakarta, would be unable to accommodate all the participants.

However, many of them left the rooms that had been booked for them at the Wisma Jaya Raya empty, as they had done in January. They preferred to return home in the evening and planned to return to the resort early on Thursday morning.

Usually, the council's special budget team and city officials continue their "ritual" Puncak meeting with a two-day meeting in the Hotel Horison in Ancol, North Jakarta, which is partly owned by the city.

This year has proved to be no exception, and those concerned are due to move there in the next few days.