Anita Rachman, Jakarta – Docking legislators' salaries would be a far more effective way of tackling rising absenteeism at the House of Representatives than installing fingerprint scanners, analysts said on Sunday.
"I don't think fingerprint scanners are the best solution, because you can still manipulate the technology," said Siti Zuhro, a political observer from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI).
"Instead, we should have financial disincentives in place to counter this attitude that legislators have that they can enjoy their large salaries and perks without having to put in any work."
The issue came to the fore recently when the House Secretariat released attendance records showing that legislators routinely skipped meetings or signed the attendance register and then left soon after. The data showed none of the nine parties in the House had ever had all of its legislators attend a plenary session.
The issue had led some legislators to call for fingerprint scanners to be used to gauge actual attendance rates.
House Deputy Speaker Anis Matta, from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), told the Jakarta Globe on Sunday that there had already been discussions about installing the devices, but no agreement had been reached.
"I don't believe fingerprint scanners are what we need, though," he said. "What really needs to be eradicated is the proclivity for long and useless debates and discussions, which discourages legislators from attending."
Anis said that legislators had a wide range of duties, including overseas visits, that sometimes forced them to skip plenary meetings. The best way to get them to show up for meetings, he added, was to set clear mechanisms and time constraints for sessions.
However, Siti said the real problem was the legislators' lack of commitment and integrity. "Only the respective political parties can resolve this problem through their recruitment methods," she said. "Do they go for committed members or just the popular ones?"
Burhanuddin Muhtadi, a political analyst from the Indonesian Survey institute (LSI), agreed that any system to improve attendance would be better than the current system whereby legislators signed an attendance register.
"As it stands now, they can easily get their staffers to sign in for them, but the fingerprint scanners – though ultimately surmountable – would at least make it more difficult for them to cheat the system," he said.
Burhanuddin called on the House to take some sort of disciplinary action against regular truants, "be it administrative, moral or financial."
He also suggested attendance records be published regularly to shame absentee legislators, while their salaries should be docked according to the number of mandatory meetings they skipped.
The House Ethics Council, Burhanuddin added, should take more seriously regulations stipulating that legislators found skipping six straight sessions without valid excuses be dismissed.
Ignatius Mulyono, a Democratic Party legislator, and Ganjar Pranowo, from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), said installing fingerprint scanners would be a positive step to shore up attendance rates and discipline lawmakers.
Ignatius said the House already had a working group to monitor legislators' performances, which had been discussing the idea for several months now. He urged the House to implement the system as soon as possible.
"We'll require all legislators to scan their fingers once at the start of the meeting and a second time at the end of the meeting," he said. "Let's give this technology a try and hope that it does the job."
Ganjar, however, said the system would only work if parties were also involved in monitoring and disciplining their legislators for skipping House meetings.
"Even if we have the fingerprint scanners in place, that won't help improve attendance rates if the parties still cover for their legislators and make excuses for their absenteeism," he said.
"The parties need to get on board with this plan."