T

he House of Representatives is once again in the spotlight for its plan to construct a new multi-story building in the legislative complex in Central Jakarta.

House of Representatives Speaker Setya Novanto unveiled the plan during his speech in a plenary session to wrap up the current sitting session late Friday.

Setya said that President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo had approved the budget for the project and he would, in fact, join a groundbreaking ceremony soon after his first budget speech at the House on Aug. 16 this year.

 '€œThe President will sign a commitment for the construction of a national icon and join the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of the national icon,'€ Setya said in his speech.

Setya said that it was about time the House had its own building. '€œAfter 70 years of independence and 17 years of reform, the legislative body has never independently had its own building,'€ he said.

The House unveiled the plan amidst criticism that the current batch of lawmakers had only registered a mediocre performance.

After seven months in office the House has managed to only to pass three laws, including the only one it passed during its third sitting period, the 2015 Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) Law.

In the previous two sitting sessions, the House only passed a law on regional elections and a law on regional administrations, both of which were leftovers from the previous 2009-2014 term.

Uchok Sky Khadafi, the director of the Center for Budget Analysis, said that the plan to construct the new building, which carries a price tag of Rp 4 trillion (US$300 million), would open up an opportunity for graft.

 '€œThe building will open the possibility of mark-ups and corruption. We have information that at least Rp 181 billion was missing from the Rp 800 billion of the first allocation budget for the House in 2011,'€ Uchok said.

Uchok also said there was no urgent need for the House to have more space.

'€œThe new building is not important. You should know that the current building has many empty rooms that can in fact be used for many purposes,'€ Uchok told The Jakarta Post.

Deputy Speaker of the House Agus Hermanto denied that the new building would be used as working space for lawmakers.

'€œWhat we will build is a museum and library for the House,'€ said Agus, a politician from the Democratic Party.

Agus said that no details were available yet on how much the project would cost.

In 2011, the House of Representatives, under the leadership of Marzuki Alie, dropped the plan to start a Rp 1.8 trillion construction project in the House of Representatives complex.