Watchdog reports big travel costs of candidates

Watchdog reports big travel costs of candidates

Dadan Wijaksana, Jakarta

The sheer size of Indonesia hints at the need for a virtually
bottomless purse for trips during the recently concluded month-
long presidential campaign.

Staff members of the campaign teams were reluctant to provide
exact figures on travel costs during the campaign, some saying
that calculations were still being made and that the final
results would be made available to the General Elections
Commission.

But the watchdog Transparency International Indonesia (TII)
estimated that total costs for the five candidates to charter
aircraft during the campaign was Rp 6.5 billion.

"The actual figure could be much higher as we could only
monitor 19 provinces," said Utami Nurul Hayati, the TII project
assistant.

Utami said charter airlines such as Pelita Air Service and
Trans Wisata were among the companies that benefited the most
from the candidates' travel, but efforts to seek confirmation
from the charter airlines were unsuccessful.

Presidential candidate Wiranto and his running mate Solahuddin
Wahid were the most traveled candidates, with some Rp 2.5 billion
having been spent chartering planes in the 19 provinces,
according to the watchdog.

Hamzah Haz and his running mate Agum Gumelar paid some Rp 1.4
billion, according to TII. Incumbent President Megawati
Soekarnoputri and her running mate Hasyim Muzadi were estimated
to have spent more than Rp 1 billion for charter flights.

The pairings of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono-Jusuf Kalla and
Amien-Siswono were estimated to have spent Rp 716 million and Rp
693 million, respectively.

The costs for transportation were still less than that spent
on media advertisements, mainly broadcast ads, which amounted to
Rp 72 billion, TII said.