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The House of Representatives may reconsider approving any
more raises for Finance Ministry officials if they fail to improve the
management of the state budget.
Chairman of the House's budget committee, Emir Moeis, said Tuesday the
state budget always received a disclaimer -- or "no-opinion" note --
from the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) was clear proof the ministry had
much to improve in its management of state finances.
This will also come as another checkpoint for legislators to measure
the ministry's performance, especially after the House approved Rp 997
billion (US$110 million) of additional funds in this year's revised
budget for the Finance Ministry's so-called "renumeration package".
The BPK and Supreme Court also received Rp 74 billion and Rp 393
billion in additional funds, respectively. The three institutions are
part of a pilot project for the government's latest "bureaucracy reform
program" of raising staff salaries to improve performance.
"So if the budget through 2009 continues to get disclaimers, we'll call
off support for the renumeration program. What's the use of giving
bigger paychecks for nothing," Emir said during a break in a plenary
session of the budge committee.
The session approved the government's audited 2005 budget account, with
legislators suggesting the BPK conduct a detailed re-audit of tax
collection, state debts and the budget's balance.
"We've all agreed on performance-based budget accounting, which means
better output and outcome. So the Finance Ministry must particularly
improve its human resources related to the implementation and
accounting of the budget."
The BPK slapped a disclaimer on the 2005 budget as well as last year's
budget -- as it has on every budget since 2000 -- saying the government
has yet to strictly follow state accounting laws for budget management.
The Finance Ministry's director for financial reporting and accounting,
Hekinus Manao, said improvement was still needed, but said his ministry
has seen progress.
"For example, we've managed to reduce the amount of allocations that
were misaccounted for from Rp 3 trillion to Rp 900 billion," he said.
"From 21,000 budget posts in all government ministries and agencies,
four ministries have been audited as totally in order by the BPK."
The ministry's director general for regional financial balancing,
Mardiasmo, said regions were also speeding up their budget drafting,
approval and implementation, to prevent delayed budget disbursements
and accounting later on.
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