Team lambasted for working slow

Team lambasted for working slow

JAKARTA (JP): Councilors have lambasted the city
administration reform team and the local inspectorate officials
for working too slowly in probing the case of the city official
vehicle maintenance losses of about Rp 16 billion.

Ali Imran Husein from the United Development Party faction and
Hotma Tambunan from the Armed Forces faction on Friday questioned
the belated actions of the team and the inspectorate officials
over the case of huge financial losses.

"If they don't want to be suspected of committing collusion,
corruption or nepotism (KKN) practices, they should soon disclose
the matter to the public," Hotma said.

Echoing the sentiment, Ali added that "there is an impression
that they want to cover up the case."

According to Ali, the administration should have finished
investigating the case and announced the results to the public
before the end of this month.

"Otherwise, we'd consider the administration has failed to
perform their duty. Then, we'll let prosecutors and police handle
the case".

When asked about the progress of the budget losses
investigation, Deputy Governor for Administrative Affairs Abdul
Kahfi, who is also head of the reform team, told reporters on
Wednesday that the administration was still in the process of
carrying it out.

"We haven't finished the investigation," Kahfi argued.

Previously, he had promised that the administration would
announce the findings this week.

More than Rp 16 billion was missing from the 1998/1999 city
budget due to the practice of marking up the number of vehicles.

Based on the vehicle ownership documents the number of
official vehicles included in the routine expenditure was 3,873,
far below the figure of 6,797 that was reported in the budget
calculation.

On Thursday, city secretary Fauzi Bowo revealed that the
number stated in the budget calculation -- based on the new
findings -- was counted at some 8,500 vehicles.

According to Fauzi, the new findings disclosed that there had
been a lot of discrepancies in the use of the money allocated for
the maintenance of the official city cars, meaning that the
administration needs more time to complete the investigation at
least until the end of this month.

"Many entries have not been made, for instance, that of a
foreign aid project for the city sanitary agency to purchase
vehicles," Fauzi told reporters. (ind/ylt)