J

akarta City councilors have given Governor Basuki '€œAhok'€ Tjahaja Purnama low marks on his accountability report of the 2014 budget year.

Ahok, who was inaugurated as governor last November, submitted an accountability report (LKPJ) with the councilors earlier this month. The councilors had 30 days to respond with comments and give Ahok recommendations for the 2015 budget year.

In the official response read by Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) councilor Pantas Nainggolan, the councilors highlighted, among other things, the city'€™s low spending in the 2014 budget year.

'€œThe councilors have read and studied the governor'€™s accountability report and we have highlighted several important points during our discussions. First, the city'€™s spending and revenues in 2014 failed to reach target,'€ said Pantas, who is also chairman of Commission E on people'€™s welfare.

City spending in 2014 only reached Rp 43.4 trillion (US$3.34 billion) of the targeted Rp 64.6 trillion, while city revenues only amounted to Rp 45 trillion of the targeted Rp 64 trillion.

Furthermore, Pantas said that the city'€™s poverty rate increased, which, he said, showed the city administration'€™s '€œfailure to help its residents prosper'€. According to data from the Jakarta office of the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), the number of poor residents of the city significantly increased year-on-year to 412,790, or 4.09 percent of the total population, in September 2014, from last year'€™s 371,700, or 3.72 percent of the population.

Pantas said that the city'€™s decision to drastically increase the taxable value of property (NJOP) also imposed a large burden on the residents. He went on to say that the Jakarta reclamation program, initiated in 1995 with Presidential Regulation No. 52/1995, was '€œagainst the law'€, specifically Law No. 1/2014 on coastal area management.

The city administration, Pantas said, also lost a number of lawsuits in 2014, which resulted in a loss of city assets. The councilors went on to give Ahok recommendations for the 2015 budget year.

'€œThe governor must always obey the country'€™s laws and regulations. The governor must stop talking and planning and start taking action,'€ Pantas said.

Although Ahok was only governor for two months in 2014, Pantas said that was no excuse for him.

'€œThe governor must not be hands-off just because he only recently became governor. That is not an excuse,'€ Pantas concluded.

After the plenary session, Ahok was quick to defend himself against the councilor'€™s criticisms. Ahok said that the city'€™s low spending was because many program suggested by the councilors were not feasible and were left untouched. Programs suggested by the councilors that were left untouched, Ahok said, totaled Rp 7.1 trillion out of the city'€™s unspent 2014 budget of
Rp 9 trillion.

'€œIn 2014, we found many allocations for dubious programs and prevented them from being executed. Most of those programs were recommended by the councilors. This explains why 2014 saw our lowest spending in history,'€
Ahok said.

Regarding the reclamation project, he said, the councilors did not fully understand the regulations.

'€œIf they read and understand the regulations, they will know that I'€™m not violating anything. If I violated any regulations, I would have been jailed by now,'€ he said.

Ahok, however, said that such criticisms were '€œnormal'€ in city politics and said that he would keep them in mind for the 2015 budget year.

'€œIt'€™s fine. I'€™ll think of this as a bad report card,'€ Ahok said.