TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Current, former governors feud over Jakarta's e-budgeting system amid controversial fund allocations
Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan and former governor Basuki Tjahaha Purnama feud over e-budgeting system that Anies claimed was not smart enough to show up any irregularities amid city's controversial budget plans.
Change Size
Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan (right) signs the Memorandum of Understanding for Jakarta's 2020 budget priorities and the 2019 revised budget in a plenary meeting at the Jakarta City Council on Aug. 14. (Kompas.com/Ryana Aryadita Umasugi)
T
he controversy over seemingly excessive billing in the 2020 city budget priorities has led Governor Anies Baswedan to promise to upgrade the electronic system he inherited from the previous administration.
Amid public scrutiny that put his administration in the spotlight, Anies has blamed the irregular allocations on the city’s e-budgeting system, which is the platform city officials use to input their budget plans.
Anies said the system could not filter line items that have unreasonable figures as they must be checked manually.
“The system is digital but not smart. A smart system would be able to do the verification. It has been going on for years,” he told reporters at the City Hall recently.
He claimed that the system was inherited from a previous administration in what appeared to be a jab at his predecessor Basuki Tjaha Purnama who first implemented the system.
Anies said the recent brouhaha had moved him to upgrade the system for successor administrations.
“I don’t want to pass on a system like this to the next governors. The administration will upgrade the existing system, making it a ‘smart budgeting system’,” Anies said, adding that his administration would introduce the upgraded version next year for the 2021 city budget planning.
