Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – A group of senior Indonesian MPs is in the spotlight after media reports here said that they and their families had lived it up on a recent tour of Europe at taxpayers' expense.
The six legislators' bill for a 10-day tour of London, Madrid, Paris, Rome and The Hague – where they reportedly dined in expensive restaurants, stayed in top-class hotels and toured Paris – came to at least US$54,000 say officials.
But the deputy speakers of the National Assembly deny misusing state funds, saying the European trip was to find foreign investors "to help the Indonesian economy recover".
Reports here say they stayed at hotels like the Hotel de Crillon in Paris, where the suites cost 1,100 euros a night, travelled in limousines and went on shopping sprees.
One of the MPs, Mr Oesman Sapta, said they had met their European counterparts in London and Madrid, and Indonesian envoys in Rome and The Hague. But a meeting with French MPs in Paris fell through, so the group had gone sightseeing instead.
As well as the state-funded expenses, Mr Oesman, who is also a businessman, is reported to have given about US$7,000 to each of his colleagues. He told the press the extra allowances were given out of generosity and thanksgiving for his recovery from cancer.
Asked about the results of the mission, he said the delegation had invited foreign investors to a workshop on economic recovery in Jakarta next week. There has been no news on whether any foreign businesses have agreed to attend.
The accounts of the MPs' European tour have made headlines in papers like Bisnis Indonesia and Jakarta amid growing scepticism about the real intent of such missions. In the past few years, many officials, legislators and even provincial councillors have gone abroad on official "comparative study" missions.
Mr Farid Faqih of Government Watch, an independent non-governmental organisation, told The Straits Times: "All these trips are non-essential, it's just a ploy to travel for free." Furthermore, the MPs appeared to have breached their code of conduct for accepting large sums of money for personal use, even if it came from fellow legislators. But he expressed doubts that Parliament would punish the MPs when it was showing hardly any resolve in fighting corruption.
On Monday, a meeting on a proposal to revise anti-corruption laws had to be postponed when less than half of the legislators showed up. The proposal was to amend an article in the law that would allow the continued existence of the Committee to Investigate State Officials' Wealth (KPKPN) but as a panel operating with diminished powers. At present, the KPKPN can force the disclosure of the assets of all public officers, including legislators.
Analysts said some legislators were keen on dissolving the committee for fear it was getting too powerful, particularly after it had gone after powerful figures such as President Megawati Sukarnoputri and Attorney-General M. A. Rachman in its hunt for undisclosed assets.