The five councillors inaugurated to lead the city council are Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) politician Prasetyo Edi Marsudi, who remains at the speaker post, and the Gerindra Party’s Muhammad Taufik, Abdurrahman Suhaimi of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), Zita Anjani of the National Mandate Party (PAN) and the Democratic Party’s Misan Samsuri as deputy speakers.

The five were inaugurated two months after the councillors were sworn into office on Aug. 26.

The speakership posts were allocated to the parties based on the respective number of seats they won in the legislative election.

The Home Ministry has set Nov. 30 as the deadline to receive the 2020 city budget, approved by Jakarta’s legislative and executive bodies. If not submitted on time, the bodies will be denied financial rights for six months as an administrative sanction as per the 2014 Local Government Law.

Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan expressed the hope the councillors would immediately start the deliberation of next year’s city budget after the inauguration.

“It is urgent to deliberate the 2020 draft city budget and complete it before Nov. 30,” he said after the inauguration in Central Jakarta.

Anies deplored the sluggish deliberation process, adding “We hope we [the executive and legislative branches] can sprint to finalize [the city budget],” he said.

Council Speaker Prasetyo said he would immediately hold meetings a day after the inauguration to discuss the selection of councillors who will lead the council's commissions. The draft city budget will then be discussed within the respective commissions, which comprise the commissions overseeing governance, economy, financing, development and public welfare.

No date has been set to have the leaders of commissions appointed, as the process is “simple”, according to Prasetyo.

Deputy Speaker Taufik was also upbeat that one month was sufficient and not that “short” to discuss the city budget.

As there were no elections for the next five years, Prasetyo, serving for a second term, said he would have no difficulty in fulfilling his duties.

“In this second term in office, I’m not setting any target but I’ll use the Qlue app to accommodate public complaints about the city budget utilization for a better Jakarta," he told reporters after the inauguration.

Prasetyo said the city council would encourage priority issues such as inequality, revitalization of slum areas, flooding and traffic congestion as the focus of the city budget.

“I feel the funding from the executive for those [issues] is not that much. I will correct that and make them priorities,” he said.

Prasetyo, who is the Jakarta PDI-P treasurer, emphasized the importance of continuing the development of the second phase of the LRT, MRT and the overall public transportation.

Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency (FITRA) research manager Badiul Hadi criticized the City Council for taking too long to select its speakers, which resulted in a delay to the deliberation of next year’s budget set at Rp 95 trillion (US$6.7 billion), the highest regional budget in the country.

“The political machinations carried on by the elites ignored the concerns of 10 million Jakartans who have been waiting for government action,” he told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

With only one month left to discuss the 2020 city budget, Badiul said he was pessimistic about the quality of the final document, as ideally it required at least three months of deliberation.

“We cannot expect much from the quality of the budget [document]. Whereas, we have yet to see significant changes in Jakarta so far, especially on issues like poverty and inequality,” he said.

The city administration plans to propose an Rp 8 trillion increase for next year’s budget from Rp 86.89 trillion set as this year’s revised budget.

Aside from the urgency to deliberate the city budget, the selection of deputy governor, a post that has been left vacant for over a year, is also deemed a crucial matter, according to deputy speaker Misan.

He added that the second-most important issue was to respond to the deliberation of the detailed spatial plan (RDTR) bylaw proposed by the city administration.

“If these two are not completed, it will burden the city administration,” he said.

Activists lambasted the previous councillors for leaving office with a below-par track record for producing a minimum of bylaws and having failed to select a new deputy governor, despite the governor submitting to the council in March two candidates for the position left vacant by Sandiaga Uno a year ago when he ran for vice president.

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