Shame on you!

Shame on you!

The Jakarta City Council's meeting with city officials at a hotel in Ciloto, Puncak, West Java, on Tuesday was called off because locals were complaining about the traffic jams caused by officials' cars parked outside the hotel.

At least 1,000 officials, including Jakarta councillors and City Hall officials, gathered at the Ciloto Indah Permai Hotel in the resort area of Puncak to discuss Jakarta's 2003 draft budget.

The hotel compound was apparently too small to accommodate all of the cars, forcing many officials to park their cars on the side of the narrow road to Cipanas.

Severe traffic congestion was obviously unavoidable when hundreds of vehicles were jammed along the side of the road.

It was only after the locals complained that the meeting was canceled.

It is not clear why the meeting was being held in Ciloto instead of Jakarta. But it is clear that meeting in Ciloto is much more costly. According to unofficial reports, the budget for the Ciloto meeting reached hundreds of millions of rupiah. Had the meeting been held at the beautiful council building on Jl. Kebon Sirih in Jakarta, that amount of money would not have been necessary.

Unfortunately, as is often the case, the councillors have their own logic. Maybe they believe they have the right to spend the provincial administration's money because they are authorized to draft and approve the budget.

What can we say? The councillors are just telling us who they really are.

-- Warta Kota, Jakarta