Bagus BT Saragih, Jakarta – The amount of money inefficiently spent by regional administrations to conduct local elections has led to cuts in spending for education and health services, a budget watchdog says.
The Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency (Fitra), which studied the financial management of 14 different local governments in conducting their latest local elections, found that budget allocations for public services had been cut significantly to carry out local elections.
"More importantly, the allocations for education and health services were among sectors with the largest budget decreases. The two sectors are among the most vital needed by the people, particularly those in remote areas," Yuna Farhan, secretary general of Fitra's National Secretariat, told a seminar on Thursday.
The NGO conducted their research in the provinces of West Sumatra, Central Kalimantan and North Sulawesi. They also gathered data in the cities of Medan in North Sumatra, Solok in West Sumatra, Manado in North Sulawesi and Surabaya in East Java.
Fitra also looked at seven regencies: Kebumen in Central Java, Bandung in West Java, Sidoarjo in East Java, Lombok Utara in West Nusa Tenggara, East Sumba in East Nusa Tenggara, Bengkalis in Riau and Ogan Ilir in South Sumatra.
According to Fitra, a local election at the city or regency level could cost anywhere between Rp 5 billion (US$565,000) and Rp 28 billion, while a provincial election costs from Rp 60 billion to Rp 78 billion.
"We have found that all of the administrations we studied have been inefficient in organizing elections. Double procurements and wasteful projects were common," Yuna said.
The East Sumba regency administration, for example, which conducted its latest regency election in June last year, has drastically reduced its education budget by 62.9 percent, from Rp 65 billion in 2009 to Rp 24.2 billion in 2010.
Fitra claimed the deficit was to support the regency's 2010 election, which had cost Rp 141 billion. "Ironically, the budgets for conducting elections were also misused. We found that many funds which were supposed to finance elections were secretly used for projects that benefited incumbent candidates," Yuna said.
Another study by Fitra also found that Rp 765 billion of social aid funds allocated to the budgets of 19 local administrations in 2009 were allegedly misused by leaders, legislators and politicians.
Local election organizers should take a lesson from the Bandung regency administration, which did not cut health and education spending to organize elections, the watchdog said.
"The [Bandung] administration had began preparing the funds for elections three years earlier," Yuna said, adding that budget allocations for the education sector in the regency doubled when it held the election.
Fitra recommended that funds for local elections across the country should be taken from the State Budget. "If the financial source for local elections is centralized, we could standardize any type of costs, which would reduce the chance of budget abuse," Yuna said.
Home Ministry spokesman Reydonnyzar Moenek said he welcomed Fitra's suggestion. "But it needs an amendment of the 2004 Local Administration Law," he said.
He acknowledged it was not uncommon that local budgets had been used for political purposes. "Our ministry has issued a number of regulations to prevent local budgets from being misused. But they always bend the rules," Reydonnyzar said.
Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) coordinator Danang Widoyoko suggested that political parties change the way they collect money.
"Political parties should collectively finance themselves from membership fees or donations. That would prevent winning candidates from committing corruption in order to pay back their 'sponsors'," Danang said.
Centre for Strategic International Studies (CSIS) political analyst J. Kristiadi said it was common that local budgets were misused to finance political campaigns and buy votes.
"Local budgets, which mostly come from taxpayers, are treated like political commodities. Politicians and leaders use taxpayer money to conduct political transactions. People's money is used as compensation for political parties," he said.