Markus Junianto Sihaloho, Jakarta – A budget watchdog has criticized the government for slashing anticorruption funding for law enforcement agencies, saying it raised questions about President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's commitment to fighting graft.
The Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency (Fitra) says its research shows the government has allocated only Rp 19 billion ($2.1 million) for the Corruption Eradication Commission's (KPK) investigations in 2011, down from Rp 26 billion this year.
It also says the Attorney General's Office is set to get just Rp 154 billion for its antigraft operations, down from Rp 177 billion.
Uchok Sky Khadafi, advocacy coordinator for Fitra, said on Tuesday that this reduced funding signaled the Yudhoyono administration's flagging commitment to tackling corruption.
"Through this finding, it's apparent that the government's promise to eradicate corruption is just political grandstanding, a strategy simply to win popularity," he said.
However, a KPK spokesman, Johan Budi, said the reduced funding for next year reflected the commission's spending for the current year. He said a Finance Ministry regulation stipulated that law enforcement agencies could not seek more funding than they spent the previous year.
"For instance, if the government allocated Rp 100 billion to the KPK one year, but we only spent Rp 90 billion, then our funding for the next year would be capped at Rp 90 billion," he said. "So the budget decrease is based on our expenditures the previous year."
He did acknowledge that setting this kind of artificial cap could hamstring the commission if it found itself trying to handle more cases next year. "We've set a target to work on 30 cases this year, but what if 60 or more cases pop up next year?" he said.
"And if the cases occur outside Jakarta, we'll need even more money. Right now the only solution we have for that kind of situation is to request additional funding in the middle of 2011 [when the budget is reviewed]."
Eva Kusuma Sundari, a legislator with House of Representatives Commission III, which oversees legal affairs, said the reduced funding was symptomatic of the government's failure to give law enforcement the attention it deserves.
Eva, from the opposition Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), said she had questioned the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) about the issue, and had been told that law enforcement was fourth on the government's list of priorities, below education, infrastructure and religious affairs.
"So it's a problem of how the government sets its priorities," she said, adding the House did not have the authority to increase the funding.
Saan Mustopha, a Commission III lawmaker from Yudhoyono's Democratic Party, denied the government was flagging in its war on corruption. The government, he said, is as committed as always to law enforcement, citing the president's move earlier this year to establish a special task force to take on the judicial mafia.
Saan also said the House could not wash its hands of responsibility for the reduced funding, and that it was actively involved in shaping the state budget. Without House approval, no budget proposed by the government can be enacted, he said.