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n a rare move, Governor Basuki '€œAhok'€ Tjahaja Purnama attended a City Council budgetary committee meeting with city administration officials for the first time on Thursday, to discuss the preliminary 2016 budget priorities and ceiling.

Ahok attended the meeting, which lasted throughout the day, for 45 minutes, saying he wanted to make sure there were no '€œdubious allocations'€ as he had received information to that effect from councilor Bestari Barus of the NasDem Party. Ahok canceled two events on his morning agenda to attend the meeting.

'€œI received information that there were dubious allocations from the Water Management Agency. I wanted to see for myself. Fortunately, it was just a misunderstanding,'€ Ahok told reporters after the meeting at City Hall.

The councilors and city officials at the meeting were shocked by his sudden appearance. Upon arrival, Ahok sat at the front of the room next to City Council deputy speaker Mohamad Taufik.

Ahok said Bestari had sent him a text message the previous day reporting suspect allocations at the Water Management Agency worth Rp 700 billion (US$50.4 million) under nomenclature that had not previously been discussed. However, after further research, it was revealed that officers at the water management subagencies in North, East, South and West Jakarta as well as Thousand Islands regency had misunderstood Ahok'€™s orders.

'€œI asked the subagencies to bid simultaneously in the procurement of sheet piles to prevent rivers from overflowing. They misunderstood and, as a result, all subagencies except Central Jakarta combined their allocations into one without notifying the City Council. That'€™s why they thought this was a dubious allocation,'€ Ahok said, adding that the funds had been returned to each subagency.

He thanked the councilors for notifying him of their suspicions, and gave his assurances that the City Council and the city administration had improved their relationship in order to draft a budget without the mistakes of previous years. Despite his famously bitter relationship with the City Council, Ahok praised the councilors for their '€œhard work'€.

'€œWe guarantee that the 2016 budget will be much more efficient and effective because both the city administration and the City Council are working hard to scrutinize the draft. I am glad to be working with these councilors,'€ Ahok said.

The councilors, meanwhile, took the rare chance to tell Ahok of their constituents'€™ requests. For example, Tubagus Arief of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), a representative of North Jakarta, said that residents in his electorate had asked the city administration to provide one motor cart in each community unit (RW) to pick up garbage.

Further, Taufik told Ahok that he did not need to think negatively of his subordinates or the councilors, and said that they were drafting the budget seriously without thoughts of cheating.

'€œThere are no more dubious allocations. Pak Governor should not think negatively of us,'€ Taufik said.

He said the committee and city officials were working hard to have the budget approved before year-end to avoid another budget conflict.