Adisti Sukma Sawitri, Jakarta – Activists say women are still not treated as equals in many regions, since governments allocate comparatively small amounts of money to empower them and improve their quality of life.
A recent study conducted by the Women's Journal Foundation found lack of transparency and an insufficient commitment to public welfare led local administrations to skew spending toward bureaucrats and other prominent community members.
The Surakarta administration in Central Java, for example, allocated Rp 3 billion (US$329,670) for the city's soccer team. By contrast, it earmarked only Rp 154 million for women and children from its health budget. The Bantul administration in Yogyakarta allocated Rp 1.1 billion to finance a tennis tournament.
"When it comes to women and children they (local administrations) always have an excuse for not taking care of them," foundation executive director Adriana Venny told a seminar Tuesday on gender perspectives in budget allocations.
She said the situation is especially unfair since some regions, particularly Bantul, receive most of their local revenue from health contributions from families.
The budgets appear to violate the central government's policy requiring regions to allocate at least five percent of their spending to empower and protect women and children.
However, since the implementation of regional autonomy in 2001, the central government is not allowed to intervene in drawing up budgets at the regional level, except for certain policies related to macroeconomics, religion, defense and foreign affairs.
Another study conducted jointly by the Women's Research Institute and the Center for Regional Studies and Information (Pattiro) found regions allocated 2.5 percent of their budgets or less for women and children. The survey was carried out in Kendal and Surakarta, both in Central Java; Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara; Banyuwangi, East Java; Makassar, South Sulawesi; Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara; and several other cities.
National Development Planning Agency deputy head for finance Lukita Dinarsyah Tuwo said the problem was bureaucrats' lack of openness about budgets, as well as the failure of local people to scrutinize government spending.
"Local administrations generally do not feel the need to report budget allocations to the public, while the people don't know that it is their right to know where their tax money goes," he said.
Women's activist Nunik Sriyuningsih, from Semarang, Central Java, said even female councilors at the provincial level are often apathetic about the issue. This contributed to the women and children being overlooked in budget allocations, she added.
Despite all of these problems, Pattiro researcher Maya Rosanty said the central government has shown good will in promoting better budget mechanisms. The Home Affairs Ministry has been moving ahead with the government's plan to change regional budget structuring, applying a performance-based budget allocation mechanism.
Under the new mechanism, several key indicators would control budget disbursement by bureaucrats, and misallocation could lead to an audit. "We can use this opportunity to push local administrations to pay more attention to the public welfare, but this will only be possible if we (the public) show them that we do care about budget allocations," Maya said.