Recently inaugurated Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan has been trying to fend off numerous criticisms of questionable items on the 2018 RAPBD (Regional Budget Draft) proposed by his administration, including IDR620 million (US$45,000) for renovations to a koi pond at the Jakarta City Council (DPRD) building as well as IDR28.99 billion to hire and pay for the Governor’s Team to Speed Up Construction (TGUPP), a 12x increase from last year’s IDR2.35 billion last year’s TGUPP budget.
Defending his hugely enlarged budget for TGUPP (which is meant provide input to accelerate development projects and make sure the governor’s projects remain a top priority), Governor Anies asserted that the increase was needed because the TGUPP staffers under Ahok were paid for by private companies.
“If they are working to help the governor formulate policies, helping to accelerate the development but are being financed by the private sector, the potential for a conflict of interest is too high,” Anies said yesterday as quoted by Detik.
Anies insisted that the amount spent on his staff would actually be less than that spent by Ahok, but because he was being totally transparent and would not take money from private companies to pay his advisors it seemed like he was spending more (despite the fact that his TGUPP staff size has ballooned to 72 under his proposed budget, as opposed to the 9 people on Ahok’s team).
“(Unlike the previous administration) we believe that this way there should be no dependence on the private sector to finance the staff of the governor,” he said, adding, “By the way we use the funds from the regional budget, so their responsibilities are clear and they are working 100% for the provincial government. Isn’t it funny to have staff paid for by a private company working in the governor’s office? Later isn’t it a concern if they’re being funded to work for the governor or a private company?”
The implication that Ahok had a staff made up of personnel paid for by private interests, while fitting into the narrative that the former governor made policies favoring private business (a narrative used to attack him on issues such as the Jakarta Bay Reclamation Project), does not seem to have any basis in reality.
It certainly didn’t sit well with those who had worked with Ahok before. Members of the former governor’s personal staff, posting to his official Facebook account, took direct issue with Anies statement and made clear that they had all been paid for out of Ahok’s personal operational budget, which came directly from the regional budget.
https://www.facebook.com/AhokBTP/posts/1707857842567236
As to the specific accusation that Ahok’s TGUPP staff was paid for by the private sector, the head of Jakarta’s Regional Personnel Agency (BKD), Agus Suradika, said that TGUPP staffers have always been paid for out of the regional budget and denied that any previous governor, including Ahok, had paid them using private sector money.
“TGUPP is not (privately funded), the TGUPP that the governor is referring to, under Pak Ahok’s team, they were paid for from the regional budget,” Agus said when contacted by Kompas today.
Despite having urged reporters to look into the source of funds for Ahok’s staff just yesterday, Anies seemed to have a change of heart today (perhaps after learning that his statements about private sector payments had been completely disproven) and said that the source of funding wasn’t actually important. Instead, he said the important thing was whether the governor’s staff had been given an official letter of appointment outlining their responsibilities.
“But let’s not talk about where the funds come from. The important thing is the letter of appointment. Imagine if I bring people around me, but I have never given them letter of appointment They have no clear roles and functions, so how can they work on behalf of the governor? he said today as quoted by BeritaSatu.
Well, hopefully Governor Anies has an actual factual basis for alleging that Ahok did not give appointment letters to his staff, otherwise he’s going to have to find a new way to deflect attention from his ballooning budget tomorrow.
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