Bruce Gale – "We are stuck with this bunch of mostly political clowns for four more years."

This grim assessment of the lawmakers that make up Indonesia's House of Representatives was published in an editorial in a Jakarta newspaper in October last year. But judging from the outpouring of criticism of the DPR's performance in recent months, it could easily have come from any one of a large number of local and foreign political observers.

The DPR regularly does badly in opinion surveys rating the performance of national institutions, with Indonesians generally regarding the House as only slightly better than the nation's graft-ridden law enforcement agencies.

The results of a poll published in the Indonesian-language Seputar Indonesia newspaper on April 4 underlined the point. Only 27 per cent of a random sample of 400 respondents contacted by telephone in six cities across the country believed that the DPR was doing a satisfactory job.

The DPR certainly performs poorly when it comes to deliberating and passing draft legislation. After initially setting itself the ambitious target of passing 70 Bills last year, for example, the House reduced the number to 40, only to find as the year drew to a close that even this figure was far too high. As a result, the year ended with badly needed legislation still awaiting approval.

For the public, however, such considerations are probably secondary. After all, the inordinate amount of time the DPR spent on high-profile controversies last year, such as the Bank Century scandal, were nothing if not entertaining. Instead, the ire of most Indonesians is more likely directed at reports of corruption, sex scandals and the low level of attendance at parliamentary sessions. Many have also been angered by proposals to construct a luxurious office tower for legislators.

But the biggest bugbear of the critics – and certainly the one that attracts the most public condemnation – are the so-called foreign study tours. These involve groups of lawmakers traveling overseas, supposedly to research topics of relevance to laws currently under consideration.

At a public forum in Jakarta in October last year, Yuna Farhan of Budget Transparency, a local non-governmental organization, noted that every lawmaker participating in a trip received a 20 million rupiah to 25 million rupiah (S$3,600) daily allowance, plus an additional US$2,000 "representation allowance."

"Legislators usually work only four out of the seven days allocated for the trip. The rest is mainly for fun," Yuna said.

There are certainly plenty of tours to keep DPR members occupied. In October last year alone, there were at least four. Members of Commission VIII (which oversees religious affairs) flew to the United States to study life among believers of different religions, and 15 DPR members flew to Greece to study parliamentary ethics. In the same month, members studying the financial services authorization bill visited Britain, Germany, Japan, and South Korea, while another group went to the Netherlands to research a draft legal aid bill.

DPR members made 58 visits to 20 countries last year. Detailed information on the cost of such trips is not readily available. However, local non-governmental organizations estimate that the budget for such study tours has ballooned in recent years. From just Rp 23.55 billion in 2005, it reportedly reached Rp 162.94 billion in 2010.

Many observers regard these tours as a waste of taxpayers' money. And the public seems to agree. Asked in the Seputar Indonesia survey whether such working visits helped improve the quality of national legislation, 71 per cent of respondents said they did not. Only 16 per cent thought they were useful, while a further 13 per cent were undecided.

House Speaker Marzuki Alie has nevertheless defended the study tours, arguing that parliamentary leaders (who have to approve tour proposals) know better than the people whether an overseas comparative study was worth the cost. He also pointed out that not all proposals were accepted.

Critics respond that many such tour groups collect trivial information, much of which could be obtained either by surfing the Internet or sending a few well-targeted e-mails. One of the aims of the trip by the ethics committee to Greece, for example, was to find out if the House Speaker in Greece could dismiss a plenary meeting unilaterally, and whether members of the Greek Parliament were allowed to smoke in meeting rooms. The reports produced as a result of these visits have also been criticized for their brevity.

The negative publicity has had some impact. Ethics committee member Gayus Lumbuun refused to go on the trip to the Netherlands last year, alleging that the expenditure involved – Rp 2.2 billion – was riddled with graft. National Mandate Party (PAN) members have also announced a boycott of such tours.

But with other lawmakers still participating in such trips, convincing Indonesians that their legislators are performing their duties in an appropriate manner remains an uphill task.