Armando Siahaan – Legislators at the House of Representatives are overpaid for essentially doing nothing, a budgetary watchdog says.

"The state allocates around Rp 511 billion [$56.7 million] a year for legislators' salaries, but their performance in turn has been extremely poor," Uchok Sky Khadafi, from the Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency (Fitra), said on Tuesday.

Uchok was speaking at the release of a report that Fitra claims is based on the pay slips of several legislators. The report shows each legislator makes an average of Rp 913 million a year.

This figure includes the base monthly salary of Rp 57 million, Rp 5.5 million in monthly health benefits, Rp 1.1 million in annual health benefits, and a Rp 154 million vehicle allowance.

The basic monthly salary, meanwhile, includes Rp 2 million to attend meetings and Rp 9 million in "occupational benefits" and household allowances. Beyond that, the state also pays legislators' utilities bills and hands out various other allowances, Fitra says.

Those serving higher positions, including the chairmen and deputy chairmen of the House's oversight commissions, as well as the House speaker and his four deputies, receive far more benefits, Uchok said.

Despite the high figures, he said, legislators continued to performing poorly at basic tasks – passing legislation, budgeting, and supervising policies.

"Fitra is very concerned that the legislators are wasting the budget, skipping hearings, and otherwise acting as rabble-rousers," Uchok said.

He pointed out that in terms of legislation, the House had performed abysmally. Legislators previously vowed to pass 70 pieces of priority legislation this year, but slashed that target to 17.

So far, the House has only passed six, all of which were amendments to existing laws, and has failed to pass a single new bill into law.

Fitra also accused legislators of failing to carry out their supervisory role by preventing the electricity rate hike or taking a leading role in the issue of exploding gas cylinders.

The group also highlighted wasteful spending by the House, including the Rp 1.8 trillion allocated for a new office building for legislators, allegations of markups in a project to renovate legislators' residences and allocations of Rp 1.1 billion to each oversight commission for unspecified programs.

More recently, legislators have been lambasted for their chronic absenteeism, which Fitra said had forced the scrapping of several plenary sessions.

Fitra secretary general Yuna Farhan called on the House to introduce fines for individual legislators deemed to be slacking off on the job.

"The law on state finances calls for accountability for every rupiah spent," he said. "In light of this, it is at best questionable whether legislators are earning their keep."

On the issue of absenteeism, Uchok suggested the House Secretariat and the House Ethics Council work together to publish the names of legislators who frequently skipped meetings, as a way of shaming them.