Forty new city councillors in Malang, East Java, are facing a mounting workload following their inauguration on Monday, as the city must finalize its draft budget and pass pending bylaws within less than a year. They will assume their posts until August next year.

The 40 interim councillors were inaugurated on Monday after the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) arrested 41 of the city’s 45 councillors over their alleged involvement in a bribery case related to the deliberation of the 2015 city budget.

Initially, the antigraft body declared 18 councillors suspects following the arrest in March of then-mayor Mochamad Anton, who was suspected to have distributed Rp 700 million (US$47,017) in bribes to councillors so they would pass the 2015 draft budget. Six months later, the KPK named another 22 members of the council suspects in the case.

The arrests left only five councillors to handle tasks such as deliberating a revised draft budget and passing local regulations. The councillors include four politicians not implicated in the graft case and another councillor, Nirma Cris Desinidya from the Hanura Party, who was named by the party as a substitute for Ya’qud Ananda Gudban, who was arrested in March.

Dito Arief Nurakhmadi, one of the interim councillors from the National Mandate Party (PAN), said on Tuesday that the council got straight to work by holding a meeting the same day as the inauguration.

“Even though it was delayed by two hours, we discussed a lot of things, including faction arrangements and other arrangements such as [the establishment of] commissions, the deliberation body and the budgetary body,” he told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

The councillors plan to hold a 2019 draft budget meeting on Wednesday, and will hold a plenary meeting with acting Malang mayor Sutiaji and a budgetary body meeting this month.

During his speech at the plenary meeting on Monday, East Java Governor Soekarwo told the interim councillors they did not have time to procrastinate as the draft revised 2018 budget had to be finalized by this month while the 2019 draft city budget had to be finalized before Dec. 15. He further reminded the newly appointed councillors to maintain their integrity during their brief stint in office.

Given that the council speaker was also arrested by the KPK, the city council is currently waiting for a recommendation for the replacement from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), which is the majority party with 11 seats.

PDI-P’s Malang branch chairwoman I Made Rian Diana Kartika said that the recommendation was expected to be announced sometime this week.

Antigraft activist Donal Fariz of the Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) said that even though the interim councillors would not serve a full tenure, they still needed to receive a briefing on corruption.

Such lessons could prevent the councillors from falling into the graft trap, as most interim councillors will need extra cash to finance their campaigns in 2019. The next general election will take place in April. (ris)

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