Study finds regional budget often manipulated

Indah Setiawati ,  The Jakarta Post ,  JAKARTA   |  Sat, 10/24/2009 11:38 AM  |  Headlines

A corruption watchdog and a foreign university warned regional heads against helping themselves to city budgets for political purposes, instead of using them for the people's welfare.

A recent case study conducted by Transparency International Indonesia (TI) and Murdoch University in three cities shows authorities tend to set aside funds from their city budgets to finance programs that benefit their political movement, instead of the people's welfare.

Researchers from TI and the university's study focused on the West Java regency of Bandung, the Bali regency of Tabanan and the Southeast Sulawesi regency of Bau Bau in the first eight months of this year.

Bandung was selected to represent industrial regencies; Tabanan, farming regencies; and Bau Bau as a hub for numerous islands in Southeast Sulawesi.

"We spotted a dangerous trend, namely regional heads allocating themselves funds from their regencies' budget to finance their political campaigns during local elections," TI's Teten Masduki said.

Teten explained his study in Bandung showed that in 2008, when the local election was held, the budget allocation for grants was intentionally raised by more than 50 percent to Rp 22.1 billion, from Rp 14.4 billion in 2007.

Ian Wilson, another researcher focusing on Tabanan, said he was shocked to learn that political intimidation played a strong role in how the regency distributed its budget.

His study showed the budget was allocated based on the residents' support for the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), which dominated the regency administration and legislative council. Wilson added that many development projects in Tabanan were dominated by contractors closely linked to an organization controlled by the regent.

Luky Djani, another researcher responsible for the study in Bau Bau city, also found that authorities in the cities he covered had similarly manipulated the budget to buy political support from parties and local mass organizations. "The budget is used as a means to say thank you to supporters and retain their loyalty. After the latest regional election, contractors supporting rival candidates did not win any projects," he said.

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