T

he relationship between the Jakarta administration and the City Council, it seems, has taken a turn for the worse.

Still in dispute over the 2015 budget, the City Council has accused the city administration of attempting to bribe councilors so that the former would agree to all programs proposed by the latter.

Council member Bestari Barus said an official within the city council offered Rp 12 trillion (US$944.2 million) to keep the councilors from '€œtouching'€ the budget.

'€œThe city administration offered the City Council Rp 12 trillion through the budget draft and they offered us councilors to make any program we wanted with that money. Of course we denied that offer,'€ Bestari told reporters at City Hall in Central Jakarta on Tuesday.

Bestari, however, refused to disclose who in the city administration was behind the bribery attempt as the council was currently '€œinvestigating'€ the matter. He went on to say that the offer must have been approved by Governor Basuki '€œAhok'€ Tjahaja Purnama.

'€œSuch an offer could not have been made without a little nudge from higher up,'€ said the NasDem Party politician.

Bestari said that the City Council was committed to making Jakarta a better place for its residents instead of '€œfussing over a budget draft'€. He went on to say that the council would form a special committee (Pansus) to '€œinvestigate the bribery'€.

'€œWe will form a Pansus to get to the bottom of this. We want to know who was really responsible,'€ he said.

The city administration and the city council are currently in dispute over the 2015 budget draft. While the legislative body blames the executive body for not involving it in the budget deliberations, the executive body blames the legislative body for trying to hamper its efforts to achieve a clean budget year.

Ahok had said that he found irregularities in the 2015 budget, which he suspected might have involved individuals from the City Council. The irregularities totaled up to Rp 8.8 trillion, which Ahok personally scrapped from the budget.

Responding to the council'€™s accusation, Ahok said that such a notion was nonsense. He said the accusation was retribution for his previous statement regarding irregularities in the budget.

'€œThat'€™s nonsense. Where did that number even come from?'€ Ahok told reporters at City Hall on Monday.

He went on to say that he was no longer a political party member and was not afraid to go against any councilor. Ahok last year resigned from the Gerindra Party due to differences in political views about direct elections. '€œTell them [city councilors] that the governor is no longer affiliated with any party. I'€™d like to know where they came up with that number,'€ Ahok said.

The city administration'€™s efforts to speed up budget deliberations have long been hampered by the City Council. After their inauguration last August, City Council members took almost four months to elect commission chairpersons due to each party'€™s ambition to place its member as a commission chairperson. The 2015 budget could not be discussed until the commission was formed.

Jakarta was the last province to submit a 2015 budget draft. Jakarta and Aceh were the only provinces that submitted the document after the Dec. 31, 2014, deadline.

The City Council approved the city budget draft on Jan. 27 at Rp 73.08 trillion, about Rp 200 billion higher than last year'€™s budget.

The Jakarta administration proposed a budget of Rp 76.8 trillion but the city council rejected some of the proposals including capital injections to city-owned companies.

The highest allocation, Rp 19.7 trillion or 27 percent of the budget, would be for education, followed by Rp 6 trillion for flood mitigation.