Matthew Moore, Jakarta/Mark Forbes, Canberra – The Federal Government rejects a plea to give Indonesia more control over international relief money pledged for the reconstruction of Aceh.

The international reconstruction effort promised for Aceh is being jeopardised by a lack of co-ordination and the absence of an agreed plan, a senior Indonesian Government minister has warned.

The chairman of Indonesia's National Planning Agency, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, has called on major donor countries like Australia to put more of their aid money through the Indonesian budget instead of insisting their donations and programs be kept separate.

But the Australian Government last night rejected the call, saying its $1 billion aid package would be distributed by an Australian-supervised joint commission. A spokesman for Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Australian taxpayers needed guarantees "their money is being spent on projects the Government approves and has accountability measures for".

The growing debate over who controls the Australian aid will dominate top-level ministerial talks to be held in Canberra next week.

In a speech delivered on her behalf to donors in Paris last week, Dr Indrawati, a former executive director of the International Monetary Fund, said she was "frankly... worried" that the desire of so many donors to plan their own programs quickly was overwhelming the Indonesian Government.

While expressing "deep gratitude" for the outpouring of generosity from foreign countries and donor groups, she outlined changes she believed were vital to ensure co-ordination of all the different aid plans from various countries.

"First, if we are serious about harmonisation, then donors should channel a higher share of their funds through the [Indonesian] Government budget, and the Government must demonstrate that it is worthy of this trust," she said. Most major donors to the relief effort, including Japan and the United States, have insisted their money be kept outside the Indonesian budget.

Mr Downer's spokesman said Australia would not provide direct budgetary assistance to Indonesia. The commission to spend Australia's $500 million in aid and $500 million in soft loans would be a co-operative partnership, he said. "We get accountability and effectiveness and the Indonesians get a hands-on role."

Dr Indrawati said she respected the choices made by some donors, but argued the money would be better used if it went through the budget and became part of a single plan. That would result in it being tracked, audited and evaluated to ensure it was well spent.

"Let's be realistic," she said. "Co-ordination does not happen by bringing donors together for weekly co-ordination meetings. It happens by bringing donor funds into the budget under a well-formulated recovery and reconstruction strategy."

Dr Indrawati acknowledged that many donors wanted to keep control of their own money because of Indonesia's reputation for corruption, but said they should instead take part in monitoring it by joining a new oversight board.

"We understand that we will need to put in place a strong and independent governance framework," she said. "This week we will be announcing governance arrangements for the reconstruction that are unprecedented in the history of Indonesia."

She said Indonesia did not even know how much money had been raised overseas for help in Aceh and called on all embassies to track funds raised in their countries as a first step in co-ordinating how they were spent.

Her speech reflects the frustration of many aid workers in Aceh who complain that it is often impossible to get money for simple projects because of restrictions by aid organisations on how the money can be spent.

Unless these problems were resolved quickly, Dr Indrawati feared the world would judge the reconstruction efforts harshly. "I wonder how history will judge us a year or five years from now," she said.

"Will the newspaper stories be full of how money was wasted as donors competed against each other for the best projects... or will they record how together we introduced a new way of doing business, in which we work in harmony for genuine results on the ground?"

Legislation to establish an Australian-supervised joint commission was introduced in Parliament in Canberra yesterday, along with a bill allocating an extra $131 million for the initial response to the tsunami.

Treasurer Peter Costello said the "Tsunami Partnership Appropriation Bill" would provide $1 billion for a five-year reconstruction program, managed by a commission overseen by the Australian and Indonesian prime ministers and chaired by the respective foreign ministers.