Sutiyoso objects to councillors' foreign trips

Ahmad Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Governor Sutiyoso revealed on Wednesday that he planned to issue a regulation that would prevent city councillors from taking from the budgets of city agencies to finance their foreign trips.

"Maybe, we will issue a decree that will prevent them using it (the budgets). We will try it," Sutiyoso told reporters at City Hall.

He had said earlier the councillors had forced the agencies to finance their foreign trips and they could not refuse. "It's all their own arrangement. But the officials could not refuse their demands," he said.

Separately, City Council deputy chairman Chudlary Syafei Hadzami claimed on Wednesday that the councillor's foreign trips were arranged both by the administration and the council.

"It's not true. The trips were made under an agreement between the administration and the council," Chudlary of the United Development Party (PPP) told reporters.

He said that the trips were useful to broaden the councillors' knowledge, saying that the council would propose budgets for similar trips next year.

Fifteen councillors from City Council Commission D for development affairs visited Beijing and Seoul in October with funds from the city sanitation agency.

Another eight councillors of Commission C for financial and budgetary affairs visited Bangkok to study taxes with funds from the city revenue office and will return home this week.

Nine councillors from Commission A for administrative and legal affairs visited Morocco and Spain to study sister cities with funds from the inter-city cooperation office and will also return home this week.

The 2001 city budget allocated Rp 11 billion for councillors' foreign and domestic trips but the general public and non- governmental organizations slammed these trips as useless and a waste of taxpayers money.

The councillors' foreign trips were apparently merely junkets as had been indicated by a letter from the Indonesian Consulate in Los Angeles last year which stated that the councillors, who planned to study taxes, did not meet any officials from Los Angeles' tax office.

In 2000, some 16 councillors from Commission D visited Australia, Japan and South Africa with funds from city-owned developer PT Pembangunan Jaya Ancol.

Besides taking an allowance from the developer of US$5,000 each, the councillors also received Rp 50 million each from the city budget.

The Prosecutor's Office investigated the case and declared three councillors Tarmidi Suhardjo and Tarmidi Edy Suwarno from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) and Ali Imron from PPP as suspects for taking the allowances without joining the trips.

Fearing public criticism, the council did not propose a fund for study trips in the 2002 city budget but increased "funds for studies" in the city agencies.

Separately activist Azas Tigor Nainggolan said that the trips were a result of collusion between the councillors and administration' officials.

"The councillors used the funds for pleasure trips, while the officials needed their projects to be approved by the councillors," Tigor said on Wednesday.