What's the money all for?

Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso has demonstrated his political shrewdness by cutting by 40 percent the allowances allocated to him under the annual city budget. From an initial Rp 9.47 billion, the governor's personal allowances budget has thus been brought down to about Rp 5 billion plus. It is the governor's right to use these funds as he sees fit.

This decision was made, in all probability, due to the angry criticism that has just possibly been making his ears burn. The fact is that critics and the media were justly surprised that the governor should be getting such a huge annual allocation while many programs concerned with public welfare have been left unfinished or have been delayed due to a shortage of funds.

But while Sutiyoso has asked his deputy to follow his move, the city councillors have said that they will not permit their annual allocations -- totaling Rp 122.1 billion, including stipends and allowances -- to be reduced. The councillors argue that the governor receives a total remuneration and allowance package that far exceeds what is allocated to each councillor. The city has 85 councillors.

Aside from Sutiyoso's move, and the councillors' efforts to retain their "rightful incomes", the 2003 city budget also gives rise to another matter of concern to the public, namely, the payment of even more allowances to the governor and the councillors by various city agencies and the Jakarta municipalities.

According to the 2003 draft budget, the governor and the councillors together are to get additional allowances of Rp 43.95 billion a year, a preposterous amount indeed. Some Rp 24 billion of this is to come from the City Youth and Sports Agency, Rp 10 billion from the City Education Agency, Rp 6 billion from the City Social Affairs Agency, Rp 3.6 billion from the City Empowerment Agency and Rp 350 million from City Population Office.

Another Rp 254 billion is to be derived from the South Jakarta municipality, Rp 317 billion from East Jakarta, Rp 208 billion from West Jakarta and Rp 1 billion from the impoverished new regency of Kepulauan Seribu. There is no explanation as to why the Central Jakarta municipality is not participating in this show of civic benevolence.

It would appear that the governor, the deputy-governor and councillors are in the happy position of being able to enjoy their good fortune without any obligation to account to the public. And, unfortunately, the agencies and the municipalities have never explained to the public why they are allocating so much money to city officials and councillors.

The Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency (Fitra), which first revealed the extra allocations for the governor and the councillors, said that the money was part of a conspiracy among the Jakarta administration's elite to hoodwink the public.

This allegation is relevant, because both the city's executive and legislative branches have been so reticent about the city's financial affairs that not a single reporter is allowed to be present, or to see or hear what is going on at the meetings.

The key to settling the issue to everybody's satisfaction is transparency and openness. Now, both Sutiyoso and the councillors have no other choice but to explain to the public what the additional money is really for. By holding the budget hearings in camera, both the administration and the councillors are succeeding in their responsibilities to build a healthy civil society. By attending these meetings, reporters could gain significant information from the debates and write relevant reports as part of their duty to provide adequate and reliable information to the public.

There is no law that prohibits journalists from attending a local government budget meeting. North Sumatra and Yogyakarta provinces are among those that permit journalists to attend such meetings, while Jakarta and West Java are among those that are still living in the age of opaqueness.

It is time for the city administration and the council to become more transparent and accountable when framing the city budget. There is no reason whatsoever for officials to be reticent about this issue, unless they have something to hide, as the money actually belongs to the people so that the people are entitled to demand accountability.

'Gong Xi Fa Cai'

For the first time, the Chinese New Year in Indonesia has been declared a national holiday by the government.

This is a long-awaited recognition of not only the presence of the largest minority ethnic group in this country, but also of its significant contributions to the nation and the process of nation building over the years.

However, recognition it may be, but still it is only a token gesture.

In their daily lives, Chinese-Indonesians still face discrimination because of the color of their skin. Nevertheless, anything is better than nothing.

We hope the government will follow up this recognition by revoking all remaining laws, decrees and regulations that smack of racial discrimination.

There are no official statistics on the size of the ethnic Chinese community in Indonesia; thankfully, the population census does not profile people by race. Estimates, however, put it at between six million and 10 million, including intermarriages.

Because they have lived in Indonesia for generations, ethnic Chinese should have the same rights as others in the nation. But alas, this has not been the case these last four decades or so.

Making the Chinese New Year a national holiday was probably the least that the community needed. Even without official recognition, the Chinese have marked the New Year within the confines of their private homes all these years. Only recently, with more openness and greater tolerance, have we started to see again the colorful lion and dragon dances being performed in the open.

Under the Soeharto regime, as part of its assimilation policy, the Chinese were banned not only from celebrating their New Year openly, but also from making an open display of cultural expressions. The use of Chinese characters was banned, Chinese were told to shed their names and adopt "Indonesian" sounding names, Chinese-language schools were closed down and, worst of all, they were told to adopt one of the five officially recognized faiths. Ethnic Chinese also were barred from entering the civil service, the military and politics, and even faced restrictions in the entertainment industry.

Soeharto's assimilation policy gave justification to the discriminatory policies. This in turn bred the prejudices against the Chinese that remain prevalent among the majority "indigenous" population. These prejudices, in turn, have been the source of the anti-Chinese riots that have sporadically taken place in the country.

Reformasi changed some of that, but has not removed the chief problem: institutionalized racial discrimination.

It was then president Abdurrahman Wahid who gave the official recognition of Confucianism as a faith recognized by the state. He also declared in 2000 the Chinese New Year a "facultative" holiday, meaning that those who celebrate it may take the day off. President Megawati Soekarnoputri this year formalized it into a full-fledged national holiday.

Many ethnic Chinese also are beginning to appear in the political scene. One of them, Kwik Kian Gie, has even served in the Cabinet under both Abdurrahman and Megawati. More Chinese- Indonesians also are starting to enrich the local pop culture.

This limited participation by ethnic Chinese in various walks of life shows that given the chance, they can make even greater contributions to society, besides their already well-recognized achievements in the trade and business sectors, and to a lesser extent in sports, particularly badminton.

All this is certainly encouraging, because Indonesia is all the better off with the unrestricted and wider participation of minority ethnic groups in the nation's life.

The development of recent years should be ground enough for the administration of Megawati to remove, once and for all, every remaining law and regulation that discriminates against people on the basis of the color of their skin.

A pledge, with a concrete plan to remove this institutionalized racial discrimination, would be the best New Year's present the President could give to the Chinese community.

Gong Xi Fa Cai.