Surakarta mayor under fire for signing deal with Unicef

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.