Five members of the Riau provincial legislative council will depart this week for a government-paid overseas trip, despite fierce public criticism of similar jaunts by councilors.
The secretary of the provincial council, Nazief Soesila Dharma, said the five councilors would travel to Warsaw, the capital of Poland, with all expenses covered by the province. He would not say the purpose of the visit.
"Everything related to the legislators' trip, including airplane tickets, hotel accommodation and per diem money, will be paid by the province. Every councilor will get Rp 50 million, totaling Rp 250 million for the five legislators. They will depart on Wednesday and come home on June 2, after a short stop in Paris," he told The Jakarta Post in Pekanbaru on Monday.
The five councilors are Fendri Jaswir and Yudha Bhakti of the National Mandate Party (PAN), Edi Basri and Helmi Burman of the Reformed Star Party, and Abdurrahman Jalil of the Golkar Party.
Nazief defended the foreign travels of the council members, saying the legislature's 2008 budget allocated Rp 3 billion to pay for the trips.
"All 55 members of the provincial legislature are scheduled to make at least one foreign trip during their five-year term of office," the council secretary said.
He said the foreign trips had been approved by the home minister and the legislators' political parties.
He declined to give the purpose of the legislators' Warsaw trip, but reliable sources at the legislature said the five councilors had been invited to an Indonesian trade exhibition.
However, according to the Trade Ministry, the exhibition concluded over the weekend.
Last week, five other councilors went to Cairo, Egypt, to take part in a seminar organized by Riau students in that country. The trip sparked strong criticism from the public.
Chairman of the economic and financial affairs commission at the provincial legislative council, AB Purba, has criticized the foreign trip program, which he said was opposed by the legislature's budgetary commission.
He said the program damaged the legislature's image, particularly as money was being spent on it at a time of economic difficulty for most residents.
"It is unethical for the legislature to take these foreign trips when a majority of the people have been hit by the recent fuel price increases," he said.
Asked to comment on the Home Ministry's approval of the program, he said it had no reason not to approve because, besides being budgeted for, the legislators were said to have been invited.
"But I am not sure that they were really invited, either to the seminar in Cairo or the trade exhibition. I am suspicious that they asked the sponsors to have them invited," he said.
Chairman of the Golkar faction at the legislature, Djohar Firdaus, warned Golkar legislators against the foreign trips, which he said had been prohibited by the party's executive board.
"The party's executive board has issued a circular, banning all party legislators from making foreign trips during difficult economic times. Those violating the circular will be punished according to the party's internal rulings," he said, adding he learned about Golkar councilors' participation in the program from local media.
Riau Deputy Governor Wan Abubakar also criticized the councilors for the trips as residents struggled with fuel price increases.
"The provincial legislature has made several foreign trips for comparative studies but these trips have so far contributed nothing to improving their performance," he said.
