Sorry, no lunch money: Silalahi

JAKARTA (JP): State Minister of Administrative Reform T.B. Silalahi has ruled out the possibility of providing meal allowances for civil servants now that their daily working hours will soon be extended.

"It's not feasible at the moment because of budget constraints," Silalahi was quoted by the Antara news agency as saying yesterday.

The government is currently considering making civil servants work five days a week instead of the present six, but will extend the working hours of the five days.

Members of the House of Representatives, while welcoming the plan which will be introduced nationwide in August next year, proposed that the government provide civil servants with meal allowances such as many workers in the private sector receive.

Silalahi said that there are now over four million people on the government payroll and a Rp 2,000 a day meal allowance would mean the government would have to hand out Rp 8 billion a day.

"This means trillions of rupiah a year and that is simply not feasible," he said. (emb)