JAKARTA — Insiders’ stunning revelations and a barrage of media investigative coverage have convinced everybody that the Indonesian House of Representatives’ Budget Committee is infested with “mafiosos” who gang up to plunder taxpayers’ money, but no one can agree what to do about it.
Non-compromised critics seek the dissolution of the committee. Moderate critics propose a reform to reduce its ridiculously formidable authority, while lawmakers just want to form a special task force to check if all the reported corrupt practices really exist
Fed up with rampant corruption in high places, the public yearns for serious measures to either ax the committee, boost oversight or slash its sweeping powers which have been allegedly misused by its members to enrich themselves and the political parties they represent.
With the relevant Cabinet ministers, the committee sets budgets for state institutions, from ministries to regency administrations, including allocations of grants administered by the state.
According to the Indonesia Budget Center (IBC), an NGO monitoring the state budget, the committee is so powerful that it commands the authority to appoint contractors for state projects. This would illustrate well why celebrity big-time graft suspect Muhammad Nazaruddin controls 154 companies handling state-funded projects in various ministries worth more than 6 trillion rupiah (US$705 million) that the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has been investigating.
And there is nothing new about politicians and government bureaucrats’ wives, children, relatives and cronies doing lucrative business in ministries. What else is better than awarding yourself multi-billion rupiah projects, or engaging in small talks and receiving large kickbacks?
The committee is notorious for its lack of transparency. Budget deliberations are held behind closed doors and in hotels, away from the public eyes. Even lawmakers’ expert staff are barred from the meetings. And there is no public participation of any kind such as in the form of public hearings.
Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) politician Fadli Zon says corrupt politicians and bureaucrats treat the state budget as an object of fee-seeking and as the primary source of corruption in Indonesia.
“Unless the problem is solved, Indonesia will never inch forward and this [reforming or disbanding the Budget Committee] would be a good start to put national development back on track,” he told Antara news agency.
Ramson Siagian, a budget observer and an ex-House member, says 641 trillon rupiah, or almost half of the 2011 state budget, is in danger of being looted by the “budget mafia” under the committee because of the weak state budgetary system.
In its May 16-22 edition, Tempo magazine reported that the lawmakers charge between 5 and 10 percent of the development fund that the local government secures with his/her “help” and as “success fee,” which must be paid up front.
Corruption in the House Budget Committee has been brought to the limelight — interestingly enough — by members of the committee, lawmakers Nazaruddin of the ruling Democratic Party and Wa Ode Nurhayati, of the National Mandate Party (PAN).
Nazaruddin has given us a valuable glimpse of how legislators who become committee members have abused their immense power and exploit extensive information about budget allocations for their personal and political parties’ financial gains.
In his bizarre revelations while on the run for almost three months, Nazaruddin said the Budget Committee received kickbacks for fixing the tender of the 191-billion-rupiah SEA Games facility project in Palembang, South Sumatra. He is one of four collaborators who have been detained by the KPK.
His insinuation is seen as credible because he is a chief suspect along with the winning contractor M. El Idris, whom the KPK has accused of bribing Sports and Youth Deputy Minister Wafid Muharram with 3.2 billion rupiah through middle-woman Mindo Rosalina Manulang.
Nazaruddin is reported to have received 5 billion of 25 billion rupiah for successfully giving El Idris’ company the job.
He named his fellow Democratic Party lawmakers Angelina Sondakh and Mirwan Amir along with Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) I Wayan Koster as the Budget Committee’s operators in milking the SEA Games funds.
Citing that she was dreadfully concerned about “mafia-like” practices in the House, Wa Ode provoked the wrath of House leadership and even a death threat for alleging in a TV talk show in May that the rampant corrupt practices in the Budget Committee involved top House leaders.
“I know of a House leader who wrote the Finance Minister telling him to immediately sign the list [that the Budget Committee had made] of regions entitled to infrastructure funds without altering anything,” the 29-year-old politician from Southeast Sulawesi said.
The furious House Speaker Marzuki Alie went as far as filing a complaint with the House Council of Ethics for slander. Irate fellow lawmakers in charge of state budgeting accused her of being a “hypocritical budget broker,” which she vehemently denied.
All the calls for dissolution and reform of the Budget Committee, where politicians can set aside their differences for a common goal, seem to have hit a wall. Lawmakers do not take them seriously and the committee will likely retain its status as the mother of all corruption.