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Govt to scrap lawmakers' right to propose projects
The government says it will withdraw the right of lawmakers to propose new projects to be eligible for funding from within the state budget, just one day after the right was approved at the House of Representatives
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he government says it will withdraw the right of lawmakers to propose new projects to be eligible for funding from within the state budget, just one day after the right was approved at the House of Representatives.
In a press conference on Wednesday, Finance Ministry director general of inter-government fiscal relations Boediarso Teguh Widodo said it planned on 'revoking' article 12 of the draft 2016 state budget.
The article stipulates that the special allocation funding (DAK) component for physical development will be open to suggestions by members of the House of Representatives.
It will allow lawmakers to propose projects to be financed by the state budget, whereas project plans are traditionally submitted by regional administrations.
'We will remove [the clause] because it's already clear that only the regional administrations can do such a thing. The lawmakers' job is to give input and consideration, not to propose projects. So we will return to the original version of the draft budget,' said Boediarso.
The original draft stipulated that the DAK aimed at financing special activities that were region-related and that qualified for the national priority list.
The size of the DAK has been set at Rp 85.43 trillion (US$6.24 billion) for next year, an increase of more than 45 percent from the Rp 58.8 trillion allocated in 2015.
The DAK itself is part of a larger regional transfer and village-funds component in the budget.
The press conference was held a day after the House's Budget Committee wrapped up a working meeting on the draft budget with the government, whose team was headed by Hadiyanto, the Finance Ministry's secretary general.
The decision to enable lawmakers to propose the projects was unanimously approved by participants in the meeting.
Wayan Koster, a Budget Committee member and Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) politician, said after the meeting that the lawmakers would be able to set certain criteria for the projects under the DAK scheme.
However, Boediarso argued that Tuesday's decision was not final and binding, and was still subject to changes during one last working meeting before the plenary session took place next week.
'The drafting of the state budget is a political process, it's not merely a calculation of spending. There is interaction between the government and lawmakers, but we don't wish for their input to be regarded as proposals,' he said in the press conference that was attended by Hadiyanto as well.
Meanwhile, according to data from the directorate general of inter-government fiscal relations, the government already disbursed almost 65 percent of this year's DAK funds as of Wednesday.
'The result is higher than the 50 percent disbursement recorded during the same period in 2014,'
Boediarso said.
The data also shows that the disbursement of village funds had reached almost 80 percent of the total and the overall disbursement of regional transfers and village funds amounted to 78.6 percent of what had been earmarked within the 2015 revised state budget.
Boediarso added that the finance minister would soon send an official letter to regents and mayors, asking them to speed up disbursement of the village funds.
