Undemocratic move

The party's over. The Jakarta City Council has approved the year's provincial budget, which amounts to Rp 11.075 trillion -- roughly Rp 1.375 trillion more than last year's. Now the governor, his deputy and the 85 city councillors are all smiles as they have completed a huge job that cost them hundreds of millions of rupiah.

Yes, the gavel has been pounded, but the public debate must go on because the decision-making process was flawed. Three questions have been left unanswered.

First: Why does the annual budget not serve the public interest? The budget allocates Rp 130 billion for the salaries of the governor, the deputy governor and the 85 city councillors, but only Rp 26 billion is set aside for poverty-related programs.

Besides his monthly salary, the governor is also entitled to more money from various stipends and allowances, not including unexplained contributions, amounting to Rp 780 billion-plus, from the South, West, East and North Jakarta mayoralties for the governor and his deputy. This amount is quite apart from the governor's allowances for health, morning coffee, newspapers and magazines, and official attire.

From this point of view, approval of the 2003 city budget raises questions that both the executive and legislative branches of the administration are reluctant to explain to the public.

The second question is, why were all the meetings and debates on the budget closed to the public? The third is, what is all that money for? What was lacking was openness and transparency, but that, unfortunately, was avoided by both the city administration and City Council.

As far as is publicly known, no legislation exists that prohibits reporters from attending a local government budget meeting at the City Council, but the reality was that all sessions were held without the presence of journalists. If they had been there, the reporters could have gathered significant information about what was going on in the meeting room, and then produce relevant articles as part of their duty to provide adequate and reliable information to the public. In this way, input from the public could have been put on the agenda of the meetings before any decision was made.

Public debates should have been held before the Council approved the budget in order to elicit the public's participation in the making of decisions on matters that concerned them. It is obvious that the city administration and Council have denied the people their right to adequate information -- especially regarding the question of what the money derived from the mayoralties and city agencies is really for.

The Jakarta city administration should have promoted openness and transparency in its efforts to uphold and promote democracy. It is difficult to see why the administration and Council have been so reticent, while other provinces -- such as Yogyakarta and North Sumatra -- do allow journalists to attend their meetings on the budget.

As things are, the question that is now on everyone's lips is, why have Jakarta administration officials been so reticent if they don't have something to hide? By keeping the public from acquiring first-hand information of what went on, Jakarta -- which should have been the barometer of the nation's social, political and economic life -- has ceded the moral ground on which to hold itself up as a model of democracy and reform in this country.