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Politicians permit KPK to sit in on budget talks
The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Wed, 08/06/2008 10:22 AM | National
Leaders of the House of Representatives and the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) on Tuesday agreed to allow the anti-corruption body to take part in sessions deliberating state budgets bill.
KPK, however, can only send its expert staff, instead of investigators, to the sessions. The anti-graft body is required to officially notify the House leaders about its presence prior to the bill deliberation.
A meeting between leaders of the two powerful state institutions was held following a KPK letter to the DPR proposing that KPK be granted access to monitor deliberations of state budgets by the House commissions.
"Basically we support transparency, but when handling it we have to consider the characteristics of each state institution. We need to build an ethical relationship between these two institutions," House Ethics Council deputy Gayus Lumbuun told The Jakarta Post after the meeting.
He said the meeting had agreed that the KPK would be allowed to take part in certain sessions of the lengthy state budget bill deliberations by sending a letter to the House leaders.
"If the meeting is being held one day, they could send a letter that very same day," Lumbuun said.
The exercise is intended to give KPK the chance to know the mechanism of budget deliberations and to anticipate possible corruption in the allocation of state budget funds to ministries and other government's agencies.
"We agreed to KPK's proposal, but the two institutions need to build a ethics-based relationship. They should be allowed to attend our sessions unless there are instances of wrongdoing," Lumbuun said.
"Initially, there were some minor differences between the House members about the possibility of allowing the KPK to take part in the sessions. However, in general we agree that KPK should be give be given some space for the sake of transparency."
The KPK request to attend the state budget deliberation came after it arrested six active House lawmakers for allegedly accepting bribes.
Only last week one of the politicians, who has been named a suspect in a graft case, told the Corruption Court all the 52 members of the House's Commission IX on financial affairs received money from Bank Indonesia officials to smooth amendment of the BI law and help resolve BI liquidity support embezzlement in 2003.
Meanwhile, KPK deputy chairman Haryono Umar is optimistic that the agreement will mean that KPK will be able to better monitor the budget deliberations process.
"There are about 13 steps in the process involving so many parties, and within this agreement we hope that we can help the House to be more focused on their monitoring and budgeting functions," Umar told the Post.
The meeting was attended by KPK chairman Antasari Azhar, KPK deputy chairmen Haryono Umar, M Jasin, Bibit Samad Rianto and House Speaker Agung Laksono, House Ethics Council chairman Irsyad Sudiro and his deputy, Gayus Lumbuun.
Also present at the meeting were House Commission I chairman Theo Sambuaga, House Commission II deputy chairman Idrus Marham and House Commission VII chairman Erlangga Hartarto.
