We cannot help but feel more cynicism toward our parliament, which has no sense of urgency in addressing the real issues.

The House of Representatives decision last week to question President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on the estimated Rp 144.50 trillion (US$16 billion) in emergency liquidity credits Bank Indonesia granted to financially-distressed banks during the height of the economic crisis between November, 1997, and early 1999, is an irresponsible act.

This is the latest evidence of how the childish and trifling politicians of the House often unwisely exercise their constitutional rights. The interpellation motion will simply waste the House's and the government's resources.

We find it flabbergasting to fathom what the House thinks it can achieve by quizzing the President on an issue already settled in August, 2003, with consensus from the House itself.

This move will only overstretch the capacity of the House and the government at a time when both are time-strapped to complete long-delayed reform measures to spur economic growth, improve the democratic process and create jobs for the millions of unemployed people and alleviate poverty.

It would be more in the interests of the people they represent if House members focused their attention on their important legislative agenda, which includes bills on taxation, mining, general elections and the structure and composition of legislative assemblies, all of which have long been behind schedule.

In 2003's final agreement on the emergency credits, which resolved once and for all their four-year dispute, the government reimbursed Bank Indonesia with 30-year bonds.

The dispute itself arose after an independent audit by the Supreme Audit Agency in 1999 found Rp 138.5 trillion of the loans had not adequately been secured with collateral, and that quite a portion of these funds, supposed to be used to reimburse depositors during the massive bank runs, had been misused by the recipient banks for currency speculation or lending to affiliate businesses.

Bank Indonesia flatly denied any wrongdoing, arguing that, as part of the Cabinet under the authoritarian rule of then president Soeharto, the central bank ought to obey the president's instruction not to close banks, notably those owned by Soeharto's cronies.

The central bank became a politically independent institution only in May, 1999, immediately after the enactment of a new law on Bank Indonesia.

Making a political issue out of the emergency liquidity credits now would only create a new source of uncertainty, especially because most of the assets ceded by the owners of the distressed banks – to repay their debts to the central bank – were sold through the then Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency to domestic and foreign investors.

Around 20 of an estimated 40 large debtors (former bank shareholders) signed closing agreements with the government to resolve once and for all their debts to the central bank. These closing agreements were concluded after government and independent audits ascertained the value of the assets pledged by the debtors was sufficient and the legal status of the assets was clear.

What is needed now is not political inquiry but vigorous investigation into the auditors' findings on alleged misappropriation and misuse of the liquidity credits.

The House should pressure the government to push harder in investigating and prosecuting the former bank owners and directors who have not yet resolved their debts or were found guilty of misusing the credits.

To our knowledge, the Supreme Audit Agency submitted as early as 2000 to the Attorney General's Office the names of more than 50 Bank Indonesian officials and dozens of former bank owners implicated in the credit misappropriation and misuse findings. But so far, only three of the central bank's deputy governors have been jailed. Several former bank directors and owners found responsible for misusing credits have also been brought to justice but most of these defendants were either tried in absentia or fled the country before serving their sentences.

The government threatened as early as 2000 to prosecute debtors who were not cooperative and did not show good faith in repaying the emergency liquidity credits, but public prosecutors still miserably failed to produce solid legal evidence to prove debtors had truly defaulted on their commitments.

Summoning the President, Cabinet ministers, former ministers and former Bank Indonesia governors and deputy governors to explain the circumstances and procedures for the extension of the liquidity credits will only waste House and government resources.

The series of public hearings the House will conduct under the right of inquiry will become largely a meaningless political circus amid a weakening economy, as skyrocketing oil prices add uncertainty to the global economy.