Bagus BT Saragih, Jakarta – Poor attendance rates, dismal performance in the last legislative session and embarrassing scandals at the House of Representatives have lent new fuel to protests against House plans to construct a new building.
Recent photographs showing Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) lawmaker Arifinto watching porn clips during a plenary session triggered condemnation of the House, which was already the target of much public anger for its controversial plan to construct a new building.
House leaders last week announced they would go ahead with the project only hours after President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono publicly remarked that the plan should be reevaluated.
Most people believe the project, at a cost of Rp 1.13 trillion (US$131.08 million), was too expensive, especially for the 560 lawmakers who were deemed to have no significant achievements to show since 2009.
"Millions of Indonesians, particularly in remote areas, still have poor access to basic rights such as education and healthcare," Alfon Kurnia Palma from the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) said Tuesday. The YLBHI is one of dozens of NGOs filing a lawsuit against the House and government over the project.
Apart from the building project, allocations from the state budget to the House will increase 40.3 percent from Rp 2.16 trillion in 2010 to Rp 3.03 trillion this year.
The plethora of overlapping bodies at the House is also seen as a means for lawmakers to receive more perks. Apart from the eleven commissions, each lawmaker can also be a member of seven internal bodies, including the Household Affairs Committee, the Consultative Body and the Interparliamentary Cooperation Body (BKSAP).
The 51 members of the BKSAP, for example, barely meet once a week. "However, each member of the BKSAP gets an additional monthly allowance," Sebastian Salang from Indonesian Parliamentary Watch (Formappi) said.
Yuna Farhan, the national secretary-general of the Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency (Fitra), said many of the House bodies could be scrapped.
A lawmaker receives a monthly salary of about Rp 60 million. Being a member of an internal body "earns" them an additional Rp 1 million to Rp 5 million each month. Members of the ad-hoc special committee (Pansus) and working committees (Panja) are also entitled to extra allowances.
A lawmaker can earn Rp 100 million a month as they are also eligible to claim aspiration absorption funds amounting to Rp 40 million per recess period and a communication allowance of Rp 11.5 million.
To critics, the perks don't correlate with legislative performance. The House's own Secretariat General showed attendance was at only 75.6 percent in the third meeting.
A Fitra study showed each lawmaker received an average of Rp 5.6 million per working day. "That means a lawmaker's absence at the House a day is a waste of Rp 5.6 million in taxpayer money," Yuna said.
The House legislative performance has been a target of criticism with only 14 of the planned 70 bills being endorsed so far.
House Speaker Marzuki Alie of Yudhoyono's Democratic Party defended the increased budget for the House, saying it was needed to improve performance. He denied accusations that the numerous internal bodies were wasteful.