Govt urged to audit how BOS funds in Lampung are spent
Oyos Saroso H.N., The Jakarta Post, Bandarlampung | Tue, 02/14/2012 10:41 AM
Anticorruption activists have urged the government to audit the use of the school operational aid (BOS) fund in all elementary and junior high schools in Lampung, due to fears that many of the recipients have misappropriated money due to the interests of headmasters and teachers.
According to Anticorruption Committee (Koak) coordinator Ahmad Yulden Erwin, the concerns emerged because the rise in the 2012 BOS fund was still considered insufficient to meet school operational expenses.
“There are many schools in Lampung that continue to require donations from the students’ parents, despite the increase,” Ahmad said, reminding that schools were not permitted to impose levies upon parents.
With the increase, the BOS fund for elementary schools this year has risen to Rp 580,000 (US$65) per student per year, up previously from Rp 397,000, while the allowance for junior high school students has increased from Rp 570,000 to Rp 710,000.
Ahmad said, however, that most of the recipient schools still required the students’ parents to pay between Rp 1.5 million and Rp 2 million a year. They are categorized as either voluntary donations or donations for the school committee. “But the schools decided the amount,” he added.
Ahmad also said that the absence of audits in the spending of the BOS fund had the potential for misappropriations. This concern was further worsened by law officials failing to act strictly in dealing with headmasters suspected of corrupting the fund.
He referred to the headmaster of state-run elementary school SDN 2 Perumnas Wayhalim, Bandar Lampung, Roflin Zakaria, who was found to have added 60 fictitious student names to the BOS recipient list to collect Rp 113.1 million over three months.
The Bandar Lampung Education Agency later asked Roflin to return the money and the case was closed. He was also reported to have forced students’ parents to pay levies of between Rp 75,000 and Rp 100,000 per child. “He has returned the BOS funds and has been dismissed from his post as headmaster,” said the head of the agency’s elementary education division manager of the Bandar Lampung BOS fund program, Bustomi.
