Anita Rachman – The price of passing legislation will become a lot more expensive if the House of Representatives gets its way – including a proposal to double its hugely controversial budget for overseas comparatives studies.

Refrizal, deputy chairman of the House's Household Affairs Committee (Burt), said the House, also known as the DPR, had proposed allocating Rp 541.2 billion ($62.8 million) for its legislation budget for 2012. The figure is almost double the budget of Rp 301.7 billion set in 2010.

The budget is also understood to provide a substantial increases for costly comparative studies abroad despite widespread criticisms the trips are wasteful travel junkets.

Ignatius Mulyono, chairman of the House Legislation Body, told the Jakarta Globe that it had been proposed that the budget for each comparative study linked to a specific piece of legislation be increased from 1.7 billion in 2011 to 3.4 billion in 2012. The total budget in 2010 is understood to be 129.2 billion, of which 58 percent was spent.

Ignatius said that lawmakers believed they were equal to ministers and as such had the right to fly business class, hence the budget increase.

The proposal is sure to provoke increased criticism of the House, which critics say remains a bastion of corruption and is out of touch with the people.