State institutions spend Rp 19.5t for study visits

State institutions ranging from the government to the House of Representatives will spend a total of Rp 19.5 trillion (US$2 billion) for study visits, four times higher than the social healthcare insurance, a non government organization said Sunday.

"The 2010 state budget has allocated Rp 19.5 trillion for study visits including overseas trips," the secretary general of the Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency (Fitra), Yuna Farjan, said as quoted by kompas.com.

Yuna said the government and the House were not sensitive to their people by spending a huge amount of money for study visits.

"They have bertrayed the 1945 Constitution that mandated the state budget must be used to improve the people prosperity," he said.