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| A glimpse of the renovated House of Representatives Budget Committee meeting room in Jakarta on Wednesday. The renovation cost Rp 20 billion ($2.2 million) and has been criticized as a lavish expenditure. It comes on the heels of a House plan for new toilet facilities that would have cost taxpayers Rp 2 billion. (Antara Photo/Yudhi Mahatma) |
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The House
of Representatives and its general secretariat are pointing fingers at each
other after a Rp 20 billion ($2.2 million) upgrade to a meeting room for its
Budget Committee, came under public scrutiny.
In the latest
controversy to dog the legislature, the House is said to have moved the meeting
space of the Budget Committee to a larger room and renovated it at a cost of Rp
20 billion.
The
revelation came just days after the House was attacked for a plan to renovate
toilets in its complex at a cost of Rp 2 billion.
Tjahjo
Kumolo, the head of the House faction of the Indonesian Democratic Party of
Struggle (PDI-P), said the decision maker on the new meeting room was the
secretariat general, with the plan then approved by the Household Affairs
Committee (BURT).
“The
matters of constructing a building, renovating toilets and parking areas, those
do not fall under the authority of the [House],” he said, adding that he never
received a report on the project.
Tjahjo
added that such controversy was “very damaging” to the House.
Tamsil
Linrung, the deputy chairman of the Budget Committee, admitted that his
committee had demanded a larger meeting room, but knew nothing of the details
beyond that, including the renovation’s Rp 20 billion tab.
“We did ask
to move so that there is a bigger Budget Committee room, with a meeting room
and a secretariat, as this year there will be additional experts from the
secretariat general,” Tamsil said.
However,
Nining Indra Saleh, the House secretary general, said that its budget plans
were always communicated to the House’s BURT.
“All
policies are discussed, we are only implementing what has been decided by the
[House], in this case the BURT,” Nining said.
The budget
allotment is also decided in a House plenary session, she added.
Nining said
the process for the project was announced on the official Web site of the House
and the budget published on the Web site of the Finance Ministry’s directorate
general for budgeting.
She said
that the renovation was necessary because the old room suffered from poor
lighting, bad acoustics, worn flooring and carpeting, and an inadequate sound
system.
Tenders,
she said, involved a Rp 566 million design project awarded to Gubah Laras, a Rp
234 million contract for supervision won by Jagat Rona Semesta and a Rp 20
billion construction project to state-run Pembangunan Perumahan .
The
renovation work involved a change of equipment, furniture, sound system,
acoustics, flooring, ceiling, and additional information technology equipment.
She also
said that the old room had only a 50-person capacity, while the Budget
Committee currently has 85 members.
Journalists
catching a glimpse of the new room said that work appeared to be 90 percent
complete and that the new meeting room was equipped with three large
flat-screen televisions and a door with an electronic lock.
Uchok Sky
Khadafi, a coordinator of the Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency (Fitra),
said that the room was not really needed, “as Budget Committee members prefer
to conduct their meetings in luxury hotels [rather] than in their own meeting
room.”
He called
on the House to drop the plan to move the committee’s meeting room, “or the
people will have their sense of budget justice disturbed.”
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