Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri has called upon party leaders to speed up the passing of key Bills which are holding up economic reforms. In an unprecedented move, the president met with the speaker of the House Akbar Tanjung, ministers and party faction leaders to seek passage of four economic bills – promised in part to the International Monetary Fund, in return for a five billion US dollar aid package. They include the state debt instrument bill, the electricity bill, the central bank bill and the privatisation bill. However, Parliament, whose current session ends on Friday, says it can only pass two, and is demanding more funds – funds which critics say are often inappropriately used by parliamentarians, including stays in luxury hotels.

Transcript:

Hasibuan: "One of the key areas that the public has been complaining of this time around about the performance of their house members, his actually in ability to meet their expectations in terms of passing all these bills. So if they're now asking for more money from the government to enable them to speed up the law making process I think it's very outrageous."

Lam: But have they explained how the funds will aid them in accelerating the passage of the bills?

Hasibuan: "I'm not sure if there was any detail to that, that they were just asking for money if the government expected them to get their act together on passing all these bills, which I think is very, very outrageous."

Lam: And if you were to hazard a guess do you think the government is likely to grant their request?

Hasibuan: "I think it would depend on what sort of public outrage you know, or what sort of response that the public would have on this. And if there's enough public outrage then I think the government would not even think of vending these funds. There's actually a fee, for example the government proposes some kind of a draft and usually without any hesitation some members of the parliament would actually come up with the fee, with a special fee you know – if you want this bill to be passed then the fee is like this, you know what I mean? That would be in addition to the expenses put in delivering the draft, so I think it's pretty ironic."

Lam: Many of the reforms, which are needed to put Indonesia's economy back on track, have met with some resistance in some quarters. Is that due largely to opposition to the demands of the International Monetary Fund?

Hasibuan: "Well I think partly, and of course at the same time the government has not really stepped up the points – but you're right, there has been strong resistance coming from the parliament in terms of meeting all these points being put in the IMF letter of intent. If you look at all these points, if you want to implement those points effectively then there would be enough victims and those victims are businesses that have close ties with the past regime. And these people still have enough money and I think one way to do it for them to protect their interests would be to go to the parliament and then they would channel their money to the parliament in order to protect their businesses."

Lam: So it's really a case of personal interests taking precedence over everything else?

Hasibuan: "Exactly yes."

Lam: Is that one of the main obstacles holding back Indonesia from the economic reforms so essential to putting it back on its feet?

Hasibuan: "I would say so, I would say so. It seems very hard for the new political actors in the so-called reformasi period to disassociate themselves from the business actors that sort of thrived under the old regime. Like I've said before, these people who have vast resources which could be channeled any time to various parties. So I think it would be one of the biggest impediments to reform."

Lam: And finally Bara Hasibuan President Megawati presents her progress report next month at the annual session of the National Assembly. What is the perception of her performance in the past year?

Hasibuan: "Well I think the consensus of that is people are not too happy with her performance on the government but at the same time the world is like, there's not enough justification for us yet have another transfer of power you know? So irrespective of the fact that she hasn't really stood up to the plate, that's not really enough justification for yet another transfer of power. So I think people are sick and tired of seeing all this political bickering every year, so they would I think rather stick around with Megawati until 2004."