Surakarta mayor under fire for signing deal with Unicef

Kartika Bagus C., The Jakarta Post, Surakarta

Local legislators are attempting to oust Surakarta Mayor Slamet Suryanto in Central Java for "unlawfully" signing a cooperation agreement with the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef).

Slamet signed the agreement on Feb. 13 in Jakarta despite an earlier decision by the city legislative council to suspend the cooperation due to the administration's lack of preparedness to carry out the development assistance programs to be initiated by Unicef.

The signing means the mayor has defied the decision issued by a special committee of the council and thus disregarded the legislature, legislators said.

Committee chairman Heru S. Notonegoro said the council would summon Slamet on Monday to clarify his signing of the agreement with Unicef.

He accused the mayor of being inconsistent and breaching the prevailing law in connection with the case.

Heru said the council had turned down the mayor's request on Jan. 25 for the legislature to approve the planned cooperation with the international organization, but he eventually defied the council's decision by signing the agreement in Jakarta.

Honda Hendarto, another member of the special committee, said Slamet had violated Law No. 22/1999 on cooperation with a third party.

He garnered support for the committee's plan to summon the mayor for questioning.

In response to the accusation, Slamet defended his decision to sign the cooperation agreement with Unicef, saying he had to sign the agreement otherwise the Surakarta administration would have lost the assistance offered.

"I just did not want the Surakarta administration and people to miss the chance to receive assistance from the international organization, which many members of the community are badly in need of," Slamet said in a written statement read out by his spokesperson Heru Haryanto.

The mayor said he signed the agreement in a meeting in Jakarta, attended by the Minister of Home Affairs Hari Sabarno and the Unicef director for the Asia Pacific region.

The amount of the fund offered by Unicef for the 2001 to 2005 period was not clear as it was not cited in the agreement signed by the mayor.

Slamet said that under the agreement Unicef had offered several development assistance programs for the education of children, including the disabled, empowerment of mothers and development of human resources.