Fresh off the controversy of proposing to pay foreign influencers IDR1 billion (US$356K) using taxpayers’ money, Jakarta’s proposed 2020 budget threw up yet another head scratcher of an allocation, this time involving lots and lots of glue.
Yesterday, city councillor William Aditya Sarana, of the Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI), tweeted a photo showing that the Jakarta Education Agency had allocated IDR82.8 billion (US$5.9 million) to buy aibon glue (synthetic rubber adhesive strong enough to stick pieces of wood together) as part of a stationery supplies budget for schools in West Jakarta. The information was obtained from the budget section of the Jakarta city administration website, which is not accessible by the public.
Ditemukan anggaran aneh pembelian lem aibon 82 milliar lebih oleh Dinas Pendidikan.
Ternyata Dinas Pendidikan mensuplai 2 kaleng lem Aibon per murid setiap bulanya.
Buat apa? https://t.co/Da9jAuBx5k
Kalau banyak yang RT besok pagi saya akan buka-bukaan soal anggaran DKI pic.twitter.com/XerdPBAwv0
— William Aditya Sarana (@willsarana) October 29, 2019
Though it wasn’t clear from the photo, William explained in the tweet that the city was going to supply 37,500 schoolchildren with two cans of aibon every month throughout the year.
There is, of course, an added layer of irony in giving children a constant supply of aibon — an adhesive that is commonly abused as inhalants. In fact, in Papua, children who sniff the substance to get high are often referred to as “aibon kids.”
At any rate, following intense public criticism, the aibon allocation has been removed and is reportedly no longer listed on the webpage as of today.
When asked about the controversy, West Jakarta Mayor Rustam Effendi said he thinks it was down to an honest mistake.
“There was probably a typo. It’s impossible. Why would we give two cans of aibon [to schoolchildren] every month?” Rustam told reporters today, as quoted by Kompas.
Jakarta Education Agency Head Syaefuloh Hidayat said the agency has fixed the supposed error. Instead of IDR82.8 billion for aibon, he said that IDR22.7 billion has been allocated for the procurement of stationery supplies for West Jakarta schools.
In light of aibon-gate, William called for greater transparency in the capital’s budget so information like this is available to the public. He also said he would reveal some more questionable budget allocations for 2020 in the next couple of days, and has, in fact, started doing so this afternoon by calling on Governor Anies Baswedan to explain a number of items in the budget, including IDR123.8 billion to buy pens for elementary school students and the proposed purchase of 7,313 computers worth IDR15 million each.
Pak Gubernur @aniesbaswedan harus jelaskan rencana pembelian 7.313 unit komputer yang masing-masing senilai Rp 15 juta. Untuk keperluan apa dan spesifikasi teknis seperti apa sehingga harus seharga itu? pic.twitter.com/AgMbI5bcnS
— William Aditya Sarana (@willsarana) October 30, 2019
We’ll have more on this story as it develops.
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