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ince its inauguration in August, the Jakarta City Council has yet to nominate commission chairpersons or members, nor has it formed other supporting bodies, consequently delaying budget deliberations for the 2015 budget year.

Jakarta Financial Management Board (BPKD) head Heru Budi Hartono said that the city administration would have no choice but to use 2014'€™s unused funds while waiting for the already delayed deliberations to commence.

'€œ[The budget deliberations] will be delayed because the commissions have not yet been formed. Therefore, we will use the 2014 leftover budget next year if decisions are not made,'€ Heru said at City Hall in Central Jakarta on Tuesday.

The new council has not been working effectively for the last three months as no commissions have been formed. The council is supposed to form five commissions: Commission A overseeing governance, Commission B the economy, Commission C finance, Commission D development and Commission E people'€™s welfare. Each commission should have a chairman, deputy and associated members.

During budget deliberations, agencies conduct meetings with related commission chairpersons and members to determine the projects and amount of funds needed for the budget year. Without the commissions, discussions and meetings cannot be conducted.

Heru said that budget spending would also be strictly limited to urgent projects such as flood mitigation and health services.

'€œUnfortunately, if we do not have a budget draft by next year, our working scope will be very limited because we will be working with an also limited amount of funds,'€ Heru said.

Separately, regional secretary Saefullah said that the city administration was currently waiting for the council to form commissions.

'€œWe submitted the budget priorities to the council several weeks ago. We'€™ve already done our part. Now we are waiting for them to invite us to discuss the budget,'€ Saefullah said.

'€œAll that is left to do is for the executive and legislative bodies to hold discussions. The executive body is ready,'€ he said.

Meanwhile, Gerindra Party faction head Abdul Ghoni said that discussions on commissions were still ongoing.

'€œWe are still discussing the commissions. We have had several meetings. However, we cannot guarantee when decisions will be made,'€ Ghoni said in Jakarta on Tuesday.

Discussions on commission chairpersons and member nominations have been in deadlock because some parties insist on endorsing their own members as chairperson. Meanwhile, the parties have blamed each other for the deadlock.

Dozens of newly installed councilors had been spending their time fighting Jakarta Governor Basuki '€œAhok'€ Tjahaja Purnama, who was sworn in as governor by President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo on Nov. 19 at the State Palace.

Ahok left Gerindra several months ago, turning his relationship with the party sour.

'€” JP/Dewanti A. Wardhani