Salary rise & House ethics

Salary rise & House ethics

From Bisnis Indonesia

The plan to increase the take-home pay of members of the House of Representatives (DPR) from Rp 28.37 million to Rp 51.87 million and House leaders from Rp 40.1 million to Rp 82.1 million indicates that the House is failing to abide by what is stipulated in its own Code of Ethics.

Based on the code, legislators are responsible for performing the tasks outlined in the "Message of the People's Suffering" (a Sukarno era slogan), and to convey the aspirations of the public to the government and strive for their fulfillment.

By increasing their own allowances, legislators are showing they no longer care about the people's suffering. This is also shown by the fact that they have let the energy crisis take place, which will significantly increase the number of poor people and the magnitude of Indonesia's poverty problem.

The House, as required by the code, should exercise restraint and avoid making any decisions that could be interpreted as breaches of its own ethics. Instead, what it is doing at the moment is making it more difficult for the country to escape from the crisis.

There have been complaints that legislators are short of money when visiting their constituencies, and that they have to pay their expenses and those of their constituents out of their own pockets. Accordingly, it is argued that the current allowances are not enough and need to be increased.

In the view of Teliti (Scrutiny), if there is a shortfall in funding, it should not be covered by House members themselves, but rather by their political parties. The reason for this is that legislators are nominated, elected and controlled by their respective political parties, which should be responsible for their relations with constituents.

Besides, the political parties are flush with funds derived from their members in the House and on local councils so that they should be able to pay the extra money that is required. It would thus be unfair to impose the burden of paying the increased allowances on the general public.

AMIR A KARAMOY Steering Board Chairman Teliti, Jakarta