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The fallout
from a $2.2 million meeting room renovation project at the House of
Representatives continued on Sunday as antigraft groups demanded it put down
the hammers and open the books.
The
Anti-Budget Mafia Coalition, which includes Indonesia Corruption Watch, said
the construction projects taking place at the House of Representatives were not
as open and transparent as they should be.
It demanded
a moratorium on all construction and renovation work and an audit into the
projects that had already taken place.
Apung
Widadi, from the ICW, said with no one watching over the House on these
projects, corruption was more likely. He said the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK)
needed to take a close look at all the construction projects undertaken or
planned for the House.
The group
also called on the House Secretariat General and the Household Affairs
Committee (BURT) to focus on building a transparent evaluation system for all
projects at the legislature.
“While the
BURT and the Secretariat General improve their performance, all projects at the
DPR should be temporarily frozen, a moratorium imposed,” Apung said.
Coming on
the heels of criticism over a Rp 2 billion ($220,000) plan to renovate the
toilets at one of the buildings used by lawmakers, the House was found to have
spent Rp 20 billion to renovated a relatively small meeting room to be used by
the House Budget Committee. The House has already canceled a plan in the face
of mounting public criticism to build a luxurious 36-story tower to house
lawmakers’ offices.
The tower
was originally expected to cost taxpayers Rp 1.8 trillion, but the price went
down to Rp 700 billion before the plan was scrapped.
Apung said
the coalition had asked the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to
investigate suspicions of graft in some of the House projects.
Indonesia
Budget Center researcher Roy Salam did not mince words in talking about the
meeting room project.
“This
renovation stinks of corruption,” he said.
The tender
selection, he said, was held twice, with 13 companies originally eligible to
complete but later only state-owned Pembangunan Perumahan deemed eligible.
A second
tender yielded three companies, including Pembangunan Perumahan, but the two
other firms were dropped due to what were called “incomplete administrative
documents.”
Roy said
the all the paperwork should have been checked before the tender, not after.
Apung said
the leadership of the House was to blame for failing to properly supervise all
the institutions within the House, including the secretariat and the BURT.
He said
this lack of supervision from the leadership, combined with the lack of
transparency at the secretariat, created an atmosphere where corruption could
thrive.
Roy added
that the secretariat was obliged to publish tender documents. Failure to do so
breaks several laws, including the Public Information Openness Law, the Law on
State Finance and the Law on the State Treasury.
He said his
institution would demand that the contract documents for the latest renovation
project be made public.
“This will
show just how much the state lost,” he said.
Apung said
the Rp 20 billion price tag was too high. “Our estimate is that it should have
only cost Rp 500 million,” he said.
Taslim
Chaniago, a member of the House Budget Committee from the National Mandate
Party (PAN), said on Friday that he was resigning from the committee in protest
over the project.
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