Hans David Tampubolon, Jakarta – Government workers have apparently found another way to make personal gains by manipulating documents for official travel.
The State Audit Agency (BPK) recently revealed that state officials often produced bogus travel documents at the end of the year to manipulate their budget utilization reports.
"We see a trend in the budgets for official travel, particularly in November and December, as there are often suspicious reports documenting state officials going on field trips to various places. Travel documents for a lot of places are signed because they worry about the utilization of the travel budget," BPK member Taufiequrachman Ruki said in a statement on the BPK website.
"This means that their institutions have failed to conduct proper planning in their programs," he added.
Finance Ministry budgeting director general Herry Purnomo said the government had no excuse not to acknowledge the BPK's findings regarding the misuse of travel budgets at state departments and ministerial offices.
"We have to admit that it [travel budget fraud] exists even though the government has taken the necessary steps to prevent this kind of practice," Herry told reporters here on Friday.
Herry said that one of the preventive measures the government had taken was using a quota system for state officials' travel duties.
"Today's system stipulates that disbursements for travel tickets are made based on facility allocation. For example, if a regulation stipulates that fourth-echelon officials are entitled to business class tickets, then their institution must pay for business class tickets whatever the cost," he said.
However, even with the current system, Herry acknowledged that state officials would manipulate travel facilities and documents to gain personal benefit due to the corrupt nature of their older colleagues.
"What happens today is an excess of a past mind-set. In the past, travel disbursement was based on a lump – sum system. This meant, for example, that if an official received Rp 1 million for travel, then he had to use that money to travel, regardless of what kind of transportation he took. Many officials manipulated this system to gain personal benefit, and nothing has changed with the current one," he said.
Herry said that one of the most common manipulative practices conducted by state officials to gain benefit from travel allowances was by forging boarding passes. By doing this, according to Herry, state officials often claim to take a more costly flight for their travel needs while in fact they take a cheaper flight.
"They work together with travel agents that can provide fake boarding passes for Rp 100,000 each," he said. "State officials also often make claims for bogus travel allocation. For example, they claim to have been traveling for five days while in fact they only spent three days traveling," he added.
Herry said that all of the extra costs suffered due to the manipulation in travel documents was considered state losses. However, he could not give a definitive figure on the amount of losses caused.