Regents deny ministers' claim over back pay

PURWOKERTO, Central Java (JP): Two regents in Central Java strongly denied on Friday claims from ministers that the central government had distributed back pay for teachers in the regions.

Cilacap regent Herry Tabri and Purbalingga regent Triyono Budi Sasongklo said in two separate interviews that they deeply regretted the ministers' claim.

"There has been no money from the central government for the teachers' back pay. The ministers should have visited the regions before making those statements. I would therefore like to clarify that the statements are incorrect and that we (regional administrations) did not use the money for various posts," Herry told The Jakarta Post.

"We received Rp 310 billion this year from the central government. As much as Rp 30 billion was supposed to be used to fund most expenditures in the regency, including civil servants' back pay. The remaining Rp 10 billion was allocated for the people's welfare, including projects."

Some ministers, including Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Jusuf Kalla, said that the regional administrations had improperly used money intended for the civil servants' back pay for several projects.

Herry said that the regency needed some Rp 16 billion to fill 7,500 teachers' demand for back pay.

Meanwhile, Triyono said that the central government must be held responsible for their woes. "It's not fair to ask the regional administration to be responsible for the civil servants' (including teachers') back pay."

Joining the chorus, Idham Samawi, the regent of Bantul in Yogyakarta, told the Post that his regency had not received any back pay yet for its civil servants, including schoolteachers, from the central government.

"We had officially asked for their back pay in June, but up to now we haven't received any response from the central government," he said.

Idham said the regency's proposal budgeted Rp 25 billion for back pay from January to July of this year for almost 12,000 civil servants in Bantul.

Meanwhile, in the East Java capital of Surabaya, governor Imam Utomo said on Friday that thousands of teachers in several parts of the province would soon receive their back pay through a partial bailout by the provincial administration.

The fund for this purpose, he said, would be partly derived from the province's contingency treasury. Part of the sum is from the central government.

In major cities such as Surabaya, Malang, Madiun and Sidoarjo, thousands of teachers did not receive any of their salaries from January to June of this year. In Madiun, some 2,000 teachers staged a demonstration last week aimed at the local legislature and went on strike for two days.

A report from Medan, North Sumatra, said, however, that as many as 1,298 of 19,650 civil servants there, excluding teachers, received on Thursday their six-month back pay, which totaled Rp 1.58 billion, while the remaining workers were waiting for theirs.

The money came partly from the central government.

Teachers are grouped along with civil servants as dependents of the regional government, following the implementation of the Law on regional autonomy on June 1. (nur/42/45/arp/sur)