Jakarta APBD-P Discussion Meeting At The Peak Is Assessed As Prone To 'Demon' Budget

Atmosphere of the DKI Jakarta APBD-P discussion meeting in Puncak (Photo: DIah / VOI)

JAKARTA - The DPRD and the DKI Jakarta Provincial Government at the Grand Cempaka Cipayung Hotel, Puncak, Bogor, held a meeting to discuss the Revised APBD for DKI Jakarta, is considered vulnerable to 'stealth' budgets or budgets that are deliberately hidden from the public.

Budget discussions should be held at the DPRD office or elsewhere in the DKI Jakarta area if this is not possible at the DPRD office.

"This is closely related to the public participation and supervision of the people of Jakarta, which should be given as widely as possible," said the Director of the Indonesian Legislative Monitoring Committee (KOPEL) Anwar Razak, quoted by Antara, Friday, October 23.

This meeting was attended by approximately 800 people consisting of members of the DKI Jakarta DPRD and DKI Jakarta Provincial Government officials and staff.

He sees this as an inappropriate practice, because discussing the budget outside the DKI Jakarta area has strengthened the suspicion of a budget game being hidden from the people of Jakarta.

"Second, the pandemic period has not ended in which Jakarta and Bogor are still in the red zone, which is not supposed to do activities to gather many people," he said.

Apart from that, continued Razak, this inconsistent practice was also an activity that had bad credibility of the DPRD and the DKi Jakarta Provincial Government in terms of handling COVID-19.

According to him, the council and DKI Pemprov should have set a good example in implementing health protocols, but by holding discussions outside the DKI area they have ignored this issue.

"The DPRD and the DKI Jakarta Provincial Government have wasted budget which has clearly ignored budget priorities that should still be used for handling COVID-19, social and economic recovery of Jakarta's public," said Razak.

Razak added that this activity had spent hundreds of millions of rupiah in APBD money only for hotel payments, official trips and so on.

"This action is an act of wasteful budget," he said.

Razak asked the Ministry of Home Affairs to give a warning to the Chairperson of the DPRD and the Governor of DKI Jakarta for the act of carrying out APBD-P redemptions outside the DPRD office and outside the Jakarta DKi area which could potentially lead to 'stealth' budgets.

"(We also) ask the National COVID-19 Task Force to give a warning to the Chairman of the DPRD and the Governor of DKI Jakarta for deliberately ignoring health protocols by gathering around 800 people in one meeting," said Razak.