By Andi Abdussalam Jakarta - Finance Minister Agus Martowardojo has called on ministries and other state institutions to maximize the absorption of the state budget as up to November 7, the realization of state expenditures has only reached 69.1 percent. The ministry of finance recorded that up to November 7, 2011, the realization of state expenditures reached only Rp912.1 trillion, or 69.1 percent of allocated budget for 2011. Yet, lawmakers have criticized the habit of ministries and other government agencies in spending the state budget by having various non-essential activities in the run up to the end of the year. "The habit of organizing meetings and seminars at the end of the year (to maximally use budget) must be stopped because the activities are useless," House Speaker Marzuki Alie said on Monday. He called on the leaders of ministries and state institutions not to spend budget for wasteful activities only to catch up with budget absorption target at the end of the year. According to the House Speaker, the efforts to spend budget without clear objectives should no longer be made. "I have received many reports from the people on how ministries and other state institutions spend the people's money without clear objectives," he said. Deputy House Speaker Taufik Kurniawan supported Marzuki's argument, saying that ministries and other state institutions should stop their habit of accelerating the absorption of budget with non-substantial programs. He said that Ministries and state institutions should not force themselves to carry out unclear programs if they were not able to absorb the budget that had been allocated for them. According to Marzuki, the habit of organizing nonessential seminars, workshops and meetings which were held only to use up budget was a bad practice. Regional governments and regional legislative assemblies (DPRD) also did the same things. Therefore, all sides must follow the president's instruction on budget savings. "The country still needs a lot of funds to improve the quality of the people's life, education, health and other pro-society economic programs," the House Speaker said. The House Speaker said if an activity was really urgent and needed there was nothing wrong for the ministries to do it but it should not be `orchestrated? for the sake of spending budget. "I have checked the truth of the reports I received and you can see that hotels are full of activities by the government and state institutions. Hotels in the Puncak area (mountainous retreat area), for example, are full," he said. These are wasteful activities and leave the impression that they have been spontaneously programmed as part of their efforts to finish unspent budget, while actually according to Deputy House Speaker Taufik Kurniawan, the unused budget could be utilized for next budgetary year. "If the budget is not absorbed, the ministries should change their pattern of thinking. They should not think that the budget is only for one year and if it is unused it will forfeit," he said. He said that they should think that if the budget was not used they should return it to the state. "Admittedly, the money will not be given to the ministries concerned but it can be used for other programs in the following budget year," Taufik stressed Taufik said that there had been an impression that if they fail to carry out the programs their performance was not good. It had been a public secret since long that ministries and other state institutions had always tried to spend budget by having non-essential programs. The activities they were carrying out to accelerate the absorption of the budget were non-substantial programs and spontaneous in nature like seminars, discussions and workshops. "This practice must be ended. Ministries and institutions should draw up realistic programs that could be implemented without considering the nominal value of the budget they are going to get," the deputy speaker said. Legislator Andi Rahmat of the House?s Commission XI on financial affairs said that the slow absorption of state budget was caused by weak coordination among the ministries and institutions concerned with goods and service procurement. He said that capital expenditures for example had only reached 40.7 percent due to the weak coordination. "Coordination is weak in terms of regulation policy at the ministerial level and at its lower level. The business world seems also to be unfamiliar with the procurement system," Andi said. Andi said that the government and the Government Goods and Service Procurement Policy Agency (LKPP) had conducted a review of Presidential Decision No. 54/2010 on Goods and Service Procurement, which was suspected to be the cause of the slow absorption of budget for capital expenditure. Thus for next year, Finance Minister Agus Martowardojo hoped that ministries/state institutions would maximize their absorption of state budget as of the beginning of 2012. "We are preparing to kick off so that the budget absorption in 2012 should be maximized since the beginning and it would be better," the finance minister said. According to the finance ministry, the realization of state expenditures up to November 7 this year has reached 69.1 percent, or Rp912.1 trillion, of the assumption in the revised 2011 state budget set at Rp1,320.7 trillion. (*)
