The House of Representatives plenary session Monday on Bank Indonesia's emergency liquidity credits to distressed banks during the economic crisis only strengthened public frustration over the lack of sense of urgency among the childish and trifling lawmakers regarding the nation's problems.
The eight members of the Cabinet who represented President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, led by chief economics minister Boediono, should have been annoyed at having to waste several hours of their precious working time at the circus at the House.
The House session, which was marked by the walkout of dozens of House members, a flurry of interruptions and even a strange call for a hunger strike, predictably produced nothing likely to help solve the situation.
There was virtually nothing new in the government's explanation of the controversial liquidity credits (estimated at Rp 144.50 trillion or $16 billion) because the questions the House submitted to the President only showed how ignorant most House members are of the real issues behind what is commonly known as the "BLBI scandal".
In fact, the House decision early last December on a motion to question the President on the BLBI was a grossly misguided political move. If the House members are really serious about exercising their constitutional right to check on the latest developments in the handling of the BLBI case they should have summoned the finance minister, the attorney general and the state police chief. It has been these three Cabinet members who have been handling the 10-year-old BLBI case.
Making a political issue out of the BLBI case will create only a new source of uncertainty at a time when both the House and the government are under pressure to complete dozens of pieces of legislation badly needed to strengthen the democratic process and deepen economic reforms.
Summoning the President to explain the circumstances and procedures for the extension of the liquidity credits will only waste House and government resources.
If the House insists on demanding the President personally give answers to the questions House members raise in light of their right of inquiry, such public hearings will become largely meaningless political circuses amid an increasingly gloomy economy due to the impact of skyrocketing oil prices and uncertainty about the global economy. The liquidity credit problem is entirely a law-enforcement issue.
As the government recounted at the House session, 23 of the 43 large debtors (former owners of distressed banks) who received liquidity credits during the height of the banking crisis in 1997-1999 had resolved once and for all their debts under closing agreements with the government which were signed between 2002 and 2004.
The closing agreements themselves were concluded after the government and independent audits ascertained that the value the assets pledged by the debtors was considered sufficient and the legal status of the assets was clear. This debt resolution process itself was based on directives issued by the People's Legislative Assembly, the highest policy-making body.
Questioning again the agreements with these 23 debtors would cause legal uncertainty because they had ceded their assets to the now-defunct Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) to repay their debts, and most of these assets had been sold by IBRA to domestic and foreign investors.
It would have been much more productive for the House to focus its attention and oversight on the handling of the remaining 20 big debtors. House members should quiz the attorney general and state police about the latest developments in the investigations or prosecutions of the ten big debtors the government has classified as "uncooperative".
The House should grill the finance minister, who is in charge of recovering liquidity credits from 10 other big debtors who are categorized as cooperative to ascertain as to why the debt collection has been so slow.
The government also has yet to explain what legal measures it has so far taken to follow up the report of the Supreme Audit Agency in 1999 which alleged that the bulk of the Rp 144.5 trillion emergency liquidity credits had been misused by their recipients.