Corruption watchdogs say that overseas trips are no longer needed at a time when lawmakers can easily obtain information online.

An allocated Rp 248.12 billion ($26 million) is budgeted for the coming year for Indonesian lawmakers to conduct "comparative studies" on issues pertaining to legislation. But critics say all the necessary information can be easily obtained via Internet search engines.

The criticism comes after it was revealed that only three mediocre reports were produced by lawmakers who conducted 143 overseas trips during the 2004-09 period.

"All they need is a computer connected to the Internet and they can gather all the necessary information without spending a penny," a staff member of a high-ranking government institution told the Jakarta Globe on condition of anonymity.

"The bad tradition is that the frequency of such trips usually increases toward the end of the year because the lawmakers need some kind of justification to get extra money, take their spouses for free trips to many countries and come home with nothing concrete," the source continued.

"In such cases, they usually inflate the transportation and accommodation rates or apply their usual dirty techniques to officially steal state funds. This has been going on for years and they enjoy it, though they claim to be the watchdogs that scrutinize state budget utilization by the government," he added.

This statement was endorsed by Roy Salam, a researcher from the Indonesian Budget Center, who told the press that most of the lawmakers are "immune to public criticism."

Earlier this year, delegations of lawmakers went on working trips to places such as Turkey, Germany and Denmark, only to arouse public anger because of the mediocrity of reports they produced following the trips.

In spite of such poor performance, the House has determined that for the next budget year, the fund allocation for overseas working trips should be increased to Rp 248.12 billion, up by 77 percent from this year's total.

Roy said the lawmakers were planning to visit 38 countries but he wasn't sure if they would bring back anything beneficial. Roy explained that he did not understand the logic of the lawmakers because at a time when they say they want to control the government's implementation of the state budget, they themselves are wasting so much money and nobody is holding them to account.

"The ears of those politicians in Senayan [the site of the parliament] are already deafened. They do not take criticism," he said.

But House Speaker Marzuki Ali said such criticism was unfair because, "the fact is, we have streamlined the budget allocation and utilization so tightly that there is no inefficiency in overseas working visits."

He said that such visits were only allowed for lawmakers who intended to vastly improve a piece of legislation that was in need of outside expertise. But for other purposes, overseas visits were not allowed, Marzuki said

"Therefore I said it is unfair, because we, the leadership of the House, have worked hard in promoting budget efficiency."

Despite the defensive posture, Eryanto Nugroho, executive director of the Center for Indonesian Law and Policy Studies (PSHK), said that there is still too much inefficiency because during the 2004-09 period alone, lawmakers conducted 143 trips to produce only three reports that were far from exclusive, or even credible.

He explained that the worst example of inefficiency occurred when lawmakers went to South Africa and produced a report that was "a copy-paste document" taken from Internet websites.

And now, against public opposition, a number of lawmakers are making preparations to visit China and France. The purpose, they say, is to collect enough material to write a law on the livestock industry.

Ari Junaidi, a political analyst from the University of Indonesia, said the plan to visit China and France was "an annihilation of our sound logic."

At a time when many people are suffering, he said, how can lawmakers embark on such thinly veiled holidays that are paid for with public money.

"If the purpose is to study livestock science and data, they could just go to East Java or Tapos in West Java or to Bali," he told Okezone.com.

But Rosyid Hidayat, a member of House Commission IV, which oversees agricultural and forestry issues, said the visits to China and France would be "very necessary," because the reports that will follow will provide crucial input for formulating a law on livestock raising and industry.

"In the name of Allah I swear that I will not visit the Eiffel Tower or dine in expensive restaurants, or go to questionable places while there," he stressed.

What often happens during overseas working trips is that lawmakers meet their counterparts in official forums and visit industrial centers.

Toward the end of the trip they are led to visit tourist destinations, dine in expensive restaurants and crown the trip with a shopping spree, paid for with state funds, critics say.