Erwida Maulia, Jakarta – The government has been criticized for allocating "too low" of a budget for protecting Indonesian workers overseas, setting aside merely Rp 26 billion (US$3.04 million) in 2011, compared with Rp 44.4 billion budgeted for a ministry's "institutional image program".

The Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency (FITRA) said on Thursday that the Rp 26 billion consisted of Rp 16.6 billion allocated to the National Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers (BNP2TKI) and Rp 9.4 billion to the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry.

"This falls short the budget for the image perception program at the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry, which is Rp 44.4 billion [in 2011]," FITRA's coordinator for advocacy and investigation, Uchok Sky Khadafi, said in a press statement sent to The Jakarta Post.

Uchok said, assuming the protection funds were allocated for just the 168,108 Indonesian migrant workers sent abroad between January and April this year, it meant that each was protected with only Rp 155,267.

That does not take into account the workers already overseas, who number in the millions.

Uchok said FITRA obtained the figures from the 2010 presidential decree on the central government's 2011 expenditures.