Sutiyoso accused of legalizing bribery
Ahmad Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Undeterred by the filing of a police report against him for defamation, chairman of the Jakarta Residents Forum (Fakta) Azas Tigor has publicly repeated his allegation that Governor Sutiyoso attempted to bribe councillors.
Tigor accused Sutiyoso on Saturday of trying to bribe city councillors by allocating Rp 17.8 billion (US$1.78 million) for session fees during the deliberation of the governor's budget speech.
"It could be considered legal bribery," said Tigor.
He said the allocation of Rp 17.8 billion for the councillors could also be considered collusion between the administration and the council to secure approval for the governor's budget speech, which will be delivered on Wednesday.
He said the allocation of the Rp 17.8 billion from the 2002 city budget was approved by the city administration to make paying the councillors legal.
"So it's more than the earlier reported sum of Rp 3 billion allocated for councillors (so that they accept the budget speech)," he added.
The Rp 17.8 billion is part of a Rp 88.3 billion budget for the council this year (not last year as reported earlier).
Sutiyoso reported Tigor to the police last week for charging that the city administration had allocated Rp 3 billion to bribe councillors.
Sutiyoso was represented by the legal department of his office, and did not personally appear at police headquarters.
Tigor has urged the public to demand that the council revises the budget, especially on the fund for the councillors, saying that any legal action would be useless.
Fakta, along with other non-governmental organizations grouped under the Coalition for Budget Transparency (KOTA), such as the Urban Poor Consortium and the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute, sued the city administration and the council last year for the lack of transparency in the making and approval process of the 2001 city budget.
But the Central Jakarta District Court turned down the suit.
The council had initially ask for Rp 102 billion for the 2002 budget, but after protests by the public, the amount was revised to Rp 83.3 billion and was approved on Jan. 31.
The 85 city councillors, whose monthly salaries reach Rp 7 million each, earlier received other perks and benefits, such as Hyundai sedans and foreign trip allowances.
Last year, the city budget allocated Rp 75.4 billion for councillors.
The Ministry of Home Affairs' Director General for Regional Autonomy Sudarsono revealed earlier that the budget for Jakarta councillors was the highest in the country, reaching Rp 1 billion per year.
Separately, city spokesman Muhayat said on Saturday that the Rp 88.3 billion fund in the current budget was proposed and approved by the councillors themselves.
"We could not reject the council's proposal. The authority to revise the budget is the council's," Muhayat said.
He admitted, however, that the approval of the Rp 88.3 billion in the budget may prompt allegations that the administration tried to bribe the councillors.