I

n the wake of a series of corruption cases linked to government procurement projects which many believe began with illicit deals during budget deliberations, a proposal has emerged for the House of Representatives to disband its budgetary body, which has been dubbed by activists as a “den of thieves”.

The lawmakers, however, are divided over the proposal.

The Democratic Party’s Achsanul Qosasi said the idea to disband the body was “interesting”. He argued that the House’s budgetary function was supposed to be wholly carried out by the House commissions. “If a disbandment looks impossible, at least the body’s authorities can be revised. This is important to prevent the body from being a place for collusion and mafia practices”.

Mahfudz Siddiq of the Prosperous and Justice Party (PKS), meanwhile, said the absence of the body “would provide less room for the House to supervise the government in dealing with budgets”.

National Awakening Party (PKB) Marwan Jafar also strongly rejected the idea, saying that the body “holds important budgetary functions that cannot be delegated to House commissions”.

House deputy speaker Pramono Anung of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) suggested that the members of the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) and the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) be involved in all of the body’s hearings.

Ronald suggested that the body become “ad-hoc”, meaning that it would be automatically dismissed soon after it finished the “synchronization” processes.

The proposal came after former Democratic Party treasurer and graft suspect Muhammad Nazaruddin accused politicians, including party chairman Anas Urbaningrum, of being involved in corruption pertaining to state-funded projects.

He accused several members of the House of Representatives’ budgetary body, including the Democratic Party’s Mirwan Amir and the PDI-P’s I Wayan Koster, of having pocketed money from the project to construct the athletes’ village for the 2011 SEA Games in Palembang, South Sumatra. Nazaruddin’s revelations were seen to have confirming suspected so-called brokering practices at the House, which are thought to have been rampant for years.

“Collusion in the budgetary body is an old song. The idea of disbanding the budgetary body is good, in the sense that the budgeting mechanism would be more efficient, but it would not guarantee the end of illicit arrangements and collusion,” political observer Sebastian Salang told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

The body’s main function is to deliberate general fiscal policies and budgeting priorities with the government. The output of this step will guide House commissions in deliberating the details of the budgets for each commission’s related ministries.

Detailed budgets produced by the commissions then go back to the budget body for the so-called “synchronization” stage, which aims to avoid budget overlaps.

Sebastian said that without the budgetary body, budgeting processes would be less time-consuming. “The body’s main functions can be done at plenary meetings,” he said.

Sebastian, however, said that illicit deals pertaining to government projects might still occur even if the body was disbanded.

Indonesian Center for Legal and Policy Studies (PSHK) researcher Ronald Rofiandri said achieving transparency was the key to curbing collusion in budgeting.

“Disbanding the body will be useless if the House commissions’ budget deliberations are held in closed-door meetings,” he said.