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House tries to save face by cutting down on recess, overseas trips
Newly appointed House of Representatives Speaker Ade Komarudin (center) clasps hands with House deputy speakers Taufik Kurniawan (left), Fadli Zon (second left) Fahri Hamzah (second right) and Agus Hermanto in a plenary meeting in the House complex in Senayan, Central Jakarta on Jan
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span class="caption">Newly appointed House of Representatives Speaker Ade Komarudin (center) clasps hands with House deputy speakers Taufik Kurniawan (left), Fadli Zon (second left) Fahri Hamzah (second right) and Agus Hermanto in a plenary meeting in the House complex in Senayan, Central Jakarta on Jan. 11. Ade will be House speaker until 2019 as he replaces Setya Novanto, who resigned last year. (Antara/Akbar Nugroho)
Members of the House of Representatives agreed to reduce the length of their recess periods and limit overseas work visits in a bid to improve their poor performance, the speaker said on Monday.
Newly elected House Speaker Ade Komarudin said that all 10 factions at the House agreed to this in a meeting of the House leaders and all faction chiefs at the House complex in Senayan, Central Jakarta on Monday.
Ade claimed that he proposed the ideas as he aimed to increase the production of legislation by the House.
"We have agreed on reducing recess time from one month to a maximum of two weeks," he said as quoted by kompas.com.
The Golkar lawmaker added that in the meeting they also agreed to abolish trips carried out by House special committees.
However, commission members, House internal councils and committees and also the House speaker and deputy speakers are still allowed to go on overseas trips.
Ade was appointed last week as House speaker to fill in the post left vacant by his fellow Golkar politician Setya Novanto, who stepped down from the position last year.
Since Setya took office in October 2014, the public has widely criticized the House's performance of having only passed three laws over about a year. The House was also under public scrutiny after Setya and House Deputy Speaker Fadli Zon attended an event held by US presidential hopeful Donald Trump in New York last year.
The latest blow to the House happened when Setya sparked an ethical misconduct scandal when he met with with businessman Reza Chalid and the president director of PT Freeport Indonesia, Maroef Sjamsoeddin, to try to broker a deal to extend Freeport's mining contract. (liz/rin)(+)
