Banjir Ambarita & Robert Isidorus, Jayapura – The entire membership of the Papua provincial legislature, including a corruption convict and other officials accused of embezzling social aid funds, has left or is preparing to leave on costly overseas trips with little perceived benefit to the people of one of Indonesia's least developed regions.
A total of 62 individuals from the 56-seat legislature and the provincial administration are scheduled to travel in separate groups this week. A contingent of 18 already left for Germany on Sunday, and groups of 21 and 23 are expected to travel later this week to the Netherlands and New Zealand respectively.
Yunus Wonda, the council deputy speaker and head of the delegation to New Zealand, has defended the trips that will leave the legislature deserted.
He also brushed off criticism that the purpose and cost of the trips were unjustified, amid reports of each participant receiving Rp 100 million ($8,600) in spending money for the four or five days they were expected to spend abroad, and the lack of clarity on their agenda during the visits.
"We've planned these trips since 2012," Yunus said. "We want to see firsthand the education of Papuan students who are studying in those countries, how they're doing, as well as how the government is supporting them in terms of scholarships and moral support. So it's clear that we're undertaking this program with a purpose. We're not just going for no reason."
Yunus claimed the combined cost of the trips was Rp 4 billion, adding that it would be paid for out of the provincial budget and had already been approved by the central government.
The legislature says there are 60 Papuans studying in universities in Germany, seven in the Netherlands and 18 in New Zealand.
Critics of the visit argue that the billions being spent checking on the tertiary education of fewer than a hundred individuals could be put to far better use addressing the education woes inside the province, including reducing its illiteracy rate of 34 percent – the highest in the country last year, according to the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) – and an education enrollment rate of less than 14 percent among the university-aged population.
Questions have also been raised about the decision by the New Zealand-bound delegation to visit only the IPC Tertiary Institute there – where Yunus has enrolled his own child, reportedly taking Rp 105 million from the provincial budget to pay for the cost.
Yunus is among several Papua councilors cited in a Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) report from July for receiving hundreds of millions of rupiah under the guise of social aid from the provincial budget.
The report showed Yunus received a total of Rp 253 million from the 2012 social aid fund, including Rp 148 million to get a medical checkup in Jakarta.
Two other councilors who also received funds from the social aid budget, Boy Markus Dawir and Ruben Magai, are scheduled to go on the trips to the Netherlands and New Zealand, respectively.
Also bound for the Netherlands is John Ibo, who was stripped of his post as the council speaker in August after the Jayapura Anti-Corruption Court handed him a 22-month prison sentence and fined him Rp 50 million for embezzling Rp 5.2 billion from the provincial budget. He remains on the council, and out of jail, pending an appeal filed before the Supreme Court.
Papua remains the most impoverished province in the country, with a poverty rate of more than 30 percent, or three times the national average.
News of some of the councilors having already left only emerged on Monday when the Indonesia Ombudsman for Papua, Iwangi Sabar Olip, visited the legislature to confirm the speculation.
"I received information that a number of council members will be going abroad. Word is that some have already gone, and others will be leaving soon. I have come to check the truth. I wanted to meet with the council secretary, but she wasn't present," Iwangi said.
The secretary, Juliana Waromi, was one of those scheduled to go to Germany. Two weeks earlier, she had denied that there were plans for the councilors to go on the overseas trips.
Iwangi said council staff had given him various accounts of where Juliana was, with one saying she was on a trip elsewhere in the country, while another said she was with a group traveling abroad.
A councilor, who asked not to have their name or the delegation they were part of made known, said that in addition to checking on the Papuan students, councilors going to the Netherlands would be "conducting legal studies" in the country. No explanation was offered for the other agendas in the Germany trip.
The councilor also refuted Yunus's claim that the visits had been planned since 2012, saying they were only arranged on short notice. "All I know is that the departures were very sudden."
The councilor pegged the cost of the trips at "tens of billions [of rupiah] from the annual regional budget."
"What I know is that every councilor gets Rp 100 million in spending money, and that excludes the airfare and the accommodation costs," the councilor added.
Iwangi said the legislature should have been transparent in planning the trip. "They should have provided clear information about the funding, where it comes from and how it's being used," he said. "They also need to be able to show results from the trip once they return. That has to be clear and open to the public.
"We shouldn't cling to the old paradigm where nothing is disclosed. Lack of transparency can lead to greater corruption."