T

he Jakarta administration and the City Council appear far from reaching a settlement to their weeks-long budget dispute.

City councilors claim that more than 75 percent of them have agreed to exercise their right to inquiry to investigate budget irregularities, and have said a plenary session will be held soon.

Deputy council speaker Muhammad Taufik of the second-biggest party in the council, Gerindra, said that more than 80 of the total 106 councilors had agreed to use their inquiry rights to investigate the budget draft.

Taufik argued that Governor Basuki '€œAhok'€ Tjahaja Purnama, a former Gerindra Party member, had violated the law by submitting to the Home Ministry a budget draft that did not bear the signatures of the City Council speaker and deputies.

'€œRoughly 82 councilors have agreed to exercise our inquiry right so we can get to the bottom of the budget dispute,'€ Taufik said over the phone on Monday.

An inquiry right, locally known as hak angket, allows city councilors to form a team to investigate a policy or decision by a regional leader, or a governor in Jakarta'€™s case. An inquiry right can only be exercised after 75 percent of councilors agree to it.

Jhonny Simanjutak, head of the PDI-P faction, the largest in the council, said that the party, which endorsed now-President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo and Ahok during the 2012 gubernatorial elections, had made a unanimous decision to exercise the council'€™s right of inquiry.

Jhonny'€™s reasoning mirrored that of Taufik, adding that '€œalthough most residents support him, the governor is not always right'€.

'€œ[Ahok] violated the law. The budget version that he submitted to the Home Ministry had not been discussed with the City Council,'€ he said.

NasDem faction head Bestari Barus said that the inquiry right was necessary in order to find the '€œculprit behind the budget irregularities'€.

'€œMaybe Ahok was fooled by his subordinates, or maybe he himself failed to read and understand the regulations. That is why this inquiry right is needed,'€ Bestari told The Jakarta Post over the phone.

Law No. 33/2004 on the financial budgets of central and local governments stipulates that a budget draft must be discussed by both the city administration and the City Council before being submitted to the ministry, as the City Council'€™s main function is budgeting and monitoring.

Meanwhile, Ahok acknowledged that the budget draft submitted to the Home Ministry did not bear the signature of City Council speaker Prasetyo Edi Marsudi.

'€œBut the budget draft doesn'€™t even have my signature on it. It doesn'€™t have anyone'€™s signature because we used the electronic budgeting system to avoid corruption,'€ Ahok told reporters at City Hall in Central Jakarta on Monday.

He insisted, however, that the submitted budget was that which had been agreed upon by the City Council and his administration in a plenary session on Jan. 27. The approved draft budget was set at
Rp 73.08 trillion (US$5.6 billion).

There is at present no law regulating the e-budgeting system. Jakarta is one of a few regional governments to use the system. Ahok said that he encouraged councilors to exercise their inquiry right to identify any irregularities in the budget draft. '€œI also want to know what irregularities they find so we can prevent misuse of budget allocation,'€ he said.

Meanwhile, PKB faction head Hasbiallah Ilyas said that his faction'€™s six councilors had not agreed to exercise their inquiry right and suggested that the city administration and council meet to discuss the matter. '€œIf we cannot find a solution after the meeting, only then will we agree to use our inquiry right.'€

The budget dispute between Ahok and the council is the latest row between the two.

Inaugurated in August last year, some of the 106 councilors, notably Taufik of Gerindra, Triwisaksana of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), Ferrial Sofyan of the National Mandate Party (PAN) and Abraham Lunggana of the United Development Party (PPP), opposed the appointment of Ahok as governor.

Later, Ahok ruffled feathers by handpicking his own deputy governor, refusing to involve the Council in the process.