Criticism Of Inequality In The Budgets Of MUI And NU-Muhammadiyah Grants And The Reasons Of The DKI Provincial Government

Illustrations (Irfan Meidianto/VOI)

JAKARTA - The DKI Provincial Government proposes a budget for grants for religious organizations in the preparation of the DKI Regional Budget for the 2022 budget year. These grant funds are given to dozens of institutions.

One thing that is in the spotlight is the granting of nominal grants to three institutions, namely MUI Jakarta, PWNU Jakarta, and PW Muhammadiyah Jakarta.

The nominal budget is uneven. The DKI Provincial Government has budgeted Rp. 10.6 billion for Jakarta MUI grants, Rp2.07 billion for PWNU Jakarta, and Rp1.89 billion for PW Muhammadiyah.

This has drawn criticism from the Deputy Chairman of Commission E of the DKI DPRD, Anggara Wicitra Sastroamidjojo. He saw that there was still an imbalance in the amount of grants between religious organizations.

Anggara assessed that NU and Muhammadiyah need adequate funding because they have many branch organizations such as Islamic boarding schools, madrasas, schools, universities, clinics, and hospitals.

"We can compare NU and Muhammadiyah organizations with MUI because these three institutions also receive funding from the APBN," said Anggara, some time ago.

Anggara believes that in addition to considering the benefits for the community, proportionality must also be a concern.

"The Dikmental Bureau needs to pay attention to the proportionality of the distribution of grants worth a total of Rp279 billion," said the PSI politician.

Chairman of the Tanfidziyah PWNU DKI Jakarta, Syamsul Ma'arif also criticized the way the DKI Provincial Government allocates grant funds.

Syamsul said, Anies should have dared to provide grant assistance based on the real needs of the mass organizations in a fair and proportionate manner. Moreover, it is not a difficult problem for DKI to be able to check it, including viewing reports on activities and the use of grant funds.

"Frankly, there are religious institutions that use grant funds for the purposes of honorariums for management, but yes, each year they are still given grants ten times that of other mass organizations which are really busy with activities," said Syamsul.

The DKI Provincial Government, according to Syamsul, should have a better understanding of the issue of granting funds. The reason is that the provision of grants for religious institutions and mass organizations should be based on the activities of these religious institutions.

"Mr. Anies knows which institutions have a lot of activities in order to participate in helping local governments. So far, it must be admitted that the DKI Regional Government is still carelessly providing grant funds, especially for mass organizations," said Syamsul.

DKI Provincial Government's Reason

Deputy Governor of DKI Jakarta, Ahmad Riza Patria, explained the reason why the DKI Provincial Government proposed the nominal granting of the grant which was considered unequal.

Riza explained that initially the proportion of grant budgeting was adjusted to the financial capacity of the DKI Provincial Government. Regarding the imbalance in grant funds between MUI and NU-Muhammadiyah, Riza said this was because MUI accommodated many Islamic organizations in Jakarta.

"Indeed, our APBD has been corrected and contracted quite high. MUI is indeed higher in grant funding than NU and Muhammadiyah because MUI is the parent of Islamic organizations that oversees many Islamic organizations in DKI Jakarta," Riza explained on Saturday, November 6.