Oyos Saroso H.N. and Syofiardi Bachyul Jb, Bandar Lampung, Padang – Many councilors at Lampung provincial legislature and 11 regency and municipal legislatures have reportedly used their letters of appointment (SK) as collateral for loans, raising doubts among observers about their performance.
More than three-quarters of the councilors took out loans of between Rp 90 million (US$9,000) and Rp 300 million, mostly from Bank Lampung (owned by the provincial administration), for periods ranging between three and five years, Bank Lampung central office head Lihan said.
"We offer special privileges for councilors and civil servants hoping to borrow, but amounts are still within reasonable limits because councilors receive large salaries," Lihan said.
For a five-year loan of Rp 200 million, monthly installments were around Rp 6 million, he said. Many of the loans were to pay for debts incurred in councilors' legislative election campaigns, Lihan said.
According to a 2006 law on regional councilors' salaries, a provincial councilor in Lampung receives a monthly salary of about Rp 20 million, while the speaker receives some Rp 27 million. A councilor at Bandarlampung municipal legislature receives about Rp 15 million a month.
Despite their relatively large salaries, however, many councillors have been criticized for poor performance.
With the added burden of monthly installments they have to pay, councillors performance was likely to decline, political observer Syarief Makhya of Lampung University said on Monday.
"A big debt is not be a problem if it does not affect (the councillor's) performance. Experience, however, has shown that it does," Syarief said.
Having borrowed heavily from banks, many councillors became lazy and sought ways to earn additional money on the side, he said. Apart from using loans to pay for their election campaigns, many councillors had taken out loans to buy new cars, Syarief said.
Separately, in West Sumatra, West Sumatra Governor Gamawan Fauzi said he would not seek another term in office next year, adding that it was very costly. The tenures of Gamawan and Deputy Governor Marlis Rahman will conclude April 28 next year.
Speaking on the sidelines of a seminar on sharia economics, in Padang on Monday, Gamawan said a governor's monthly salary of Rp 8.5 million was not enough to cover the amount he had spent on his election campaign.
"It's impossible (for me) to break even on a salary of that amount while maintaining a commitment to clean governance," he said. Under these conditions, Gamawan said, such positions were only be suitable for sincere figures who purely wanted to serve the people and who were not looking to break even.