Anita Rachman & Markus Junianto Sihaloho – Although it appears not to have been made as a complaint, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's recent statement about his lack of a pay rise over the last seven years has sparked a mixed reaction – including the mischievous appearance of a "Coins for the President" collection box at the House of Representatives.
A senior Democratic Party member, Achsanul Qosasih, on Tuesday said the president's salary should be the highest among all state officials.
Achsanul said the president earned around Rp 62 million ($6,900) per month, lower than the Rp 100 million monthly salary made by the Central Bank governor, and should be increased.
"The most ideal situation is the president has the highest salary. Not like now, where his salary is lower than many executives working in state-owned enterprises," he said. "We want the president's salary to be raised along with a rationalization program of state officials' salaries, which will soon be proposed by us."
Finance Minister Agus Martowardojo said the president's salary would be raised this year, without elaborating. "Actually we have been planning this since three years ago" but the issue had not been finalized because it was a complex matter, Agus said.
The finance minister said increasing the president's salary was important as other state officials' salaries could not be raised otherwise. Agus also stressed that the pay increase would not be a burden on the state treasury.
Some lawmakers have seized on the president's statement, made during an address he delivered on Friday to members of the National Police and military, saying that Yudhoyono's public comments were unseemly and petty.
Former President Megawati Sukarnoputri said Yudhoyono should be "ashamed" for talking about his salary in public. She added the current pay rate was more than ample.
"The president's salary is enough, and for me it is far more than enough," Megawati told hundreds of village heads at a seminar in South Jakarta on Tuesday. "When I was president, I never complained about such a thing. No one ever asked him to become a president; why is he now making such a complaint?"
In a display of cheekiness or displeasure at Yudhoyono's comments, some lawmakers from House Commission III, which oversees legal affairs, on Monday night set up a "coin donation box" for the president.
Bambang Soesatyo, a Golkar lawmaker and staunch government critic, initiated the tongue-in-cheek poor box, saying the action was not a personal attack on Yudhoyono but rather "another form of criticism from us."
Bambang said the collection box, posted near the commission's secretariat office, went missing on Tuesday afternoon. He said he suspected that commission members afraid of reprisals had taken the box away.
Democratic Party chairman Anas Urbaningrum on Tuesday urged a halt to attacking the president's statement for political interests, saying it was obvious that Yudhoyono had not been complaining about his pay.