TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Home Ministry responds to Ahok's budget complaints
Dodi Riadmadji (kompas
Change Size
Dodi Riadmadji (kompas.com) (kompas.com)
Dodi Riadmadji (kompas.com)
The Home Ministry on Tuesday responded to complaints made by Jakarta Governor Basuki 'Ahok' Tjahaja Purnama about the ministry's sluggish approval process for the 2015 city revised draft budget, submitted in August by the Jakarta city administration.
Ministry spokesperson Dodi Riadmadji said that the budget approval process for Jakarta was different from the approval process of other regional revised budgets.
He stressed that the approval process for the Jakarta draft budget had to pass through two stages: the ministry's regional development directorate general and the ministry's regional finance directorate general.
Unlike approval processes for other regional budgets, Dodi said, the legal basis of the Jakarta city budget was not a bylaw, but a gubernatorial decree because the draft budget was not approved by the City Council due to a disagreement between the two institutions early this year.
Dodi denied Ahok's accusation that the ministry had intentionally made the approval process longer. 'No, we did not intentionally disrupt the city budget. There is no political factor in the budgetary process, so it should not be exaggerated,' Dodi added.
Jakarta Governor Ahok earlier protested the Home Ministry's sluggish processing of the city budgets approval. He said that the ministry had returned the draft revised budget to the Jakarta city administration several times. 'What is behind the sluggishness at the Home Ministry? The ministry is making us jump through hoops,' said the governor angrily on Monday.
According to Dodi, the city administration made its last revision only a few days ago and if there was no major corrections needed, the Home Ministry could approve the draft budget within the next two weeks.
'The regional finance directorate general is waiting for an evaluation by the regional development directorate general. Currently the document is being processed [there],' Dodi added. (bbn)
