Annastashya Emmanuelle, Jakarta – Although the government has constantly vowed to eradicate graft and corruption, the level of budget malfeasance remains high as action is rarely taken by the relevant government institutions to follow up on reports of irregularities released by the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK).
"There is no significant difference in the percentage of budget irregularities under the previous governments and the present one," BPK chairman Satrio B. Judono told reporters after a meeting with Vice President Hamzah Haz.
"It's clear that there's still not much being done to follow up on our reports [of misuse of funds] ... we still find the same irregularities occurring repeatedly," he said, adding that his agency found most of the irregularities occurred in logistics sections of virtually all departments.
In its latest report, the BPK unveiled 1,076 cases of irregularities in the budget resulting in Rp 2.8 trillion (around US$280 million) in losses to the state.
The report, which was submitted to the House of Representatives (DPR) in March, revealed irregularities worth over Rp 1 trillion in the country's state-owned enterprises in 2001.
Regional administration budgets (APBD) came in second with 302 cases resulting in state losses worth Rp 177 billion.
Most of the irregularities, totaling 450 cases, were categorized as "deviations from the law" followed by "deviations from objectives", which totaled 321 cases
The BPK's duty is to provide reports following audits of government institutions. It is then up to the respective department to examine and correct the irregularities.
"Follow-up are the responsibility of those who are being audited, which is the government. Therefore it is up to the government to make changes," Satrio said.
Prior to the submission of the BPK's report to the House, the State Development Finance Controller (BPKP) reported incidents of misappropriation involving Rp 2.5 trillion of state funds in 2001.
Satrio said on Wednesday that BPKP and his agency's duties often overlapped. Nevertheless, the BPK was currently short of the human resources and funds it needed to work effectively.
Regarding the disputed Rp 30 billion taken from the Presidential Assistance Fund (Banpres) that was donated by President Megawati Soekarnoputri for the renovation of military and police accommodation, Satrio said that monies from the fund should not be used before it was included in the state budget (APBN).
"The assistance fund should be included in the APBN before it is spent," he said at the State Palace after meeting President Megawati Soekarnoputri.
According to Satrio, during the presidency of Abdurrahman Wahid, his agency recorded Rp 540 billion in presidential assistance funds held by the State Secretariat.
At that time, the Minister of Finance instructed all non-budgetary funds to be included in the APBN. "The last time we audited the State Secretariat was in June 2000. In the near future, we will examine this institution and then we will see whether the fund has been included in the state budget or not," he said.