TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The postponement of the approval of the budget of state capital injection for state-owned enterprises in the plenary session of the House of Representatives (DPR) indicated transactional politics in the deliberation of state budget.
The stand made by the DPR should be suspected because the state capital injection actually has been approved by all factions in the commission meeting and the budget board.
The postponement of the budget of Rp40.4 trillion should have been done at the session of the commission or in the budget board, not in the plenary session.
With the postponement, the plenary session has disclaimed all works of the commission and budget board in discussing the state capital injection.
This is unusual, with the composition of the representativeness of the same factions, the plenary session has different views from the views of the commission and the budget board.
Members of commission or budget board should have consulted everything in the deliberation of this state capital injection issue to the factions before making a decision at the level of commission or board.
There is nothing mistaken in the decision to postpone because the plenary session that has the authority to approve or annul decision at commission or board level.
However, the differences of stand allegations that there is transactional politics in the budget deliberation.
Fear of transactional politics is not without reason.
A similar thing happened in the previous terms.
One of them when the government lobbied the Red and While Coalition to approve the 2015 revised State Budget, including in it capital state injection to state-owned enterprises worth Rp37.2 trillion.
At the same time, the Golkar Party of Aburizal Bakrie side, one of the components of the Red and White Coalition, urged to the government to immediately issue an acknowledgment letter for the leadership of Golkar Party decided at the National Assembly in Riau.
The DPR finally approved the allocation of the state capital injection and the government also acknowledged Aburizal as the chairman of Golkar Party for the period of 2009-2015 several days before.
Such an inconsistence did not have to happen if the DPR or the government since the beginning prioritized the principle of openness in formulating a number of criteria to approve or reject the state capital injection for state-owned enterprises.
The transparency of the budget issue should have been known by the public so that the process can proceed accountably.
Half-opened lobbies or outside the plenary session is not prohibited as long as the aim is to discuss urgency of one budget post.
It will be different if it is done as a process that is transactional just like what have often happened so far.
Besides, the government is often in a difficult position because of the budget that has been surpassed.
In the case of the 2016 bill of State Budget, it is strongly alleged that ‘negotiation’ did happen.
One of them is because there is a transaction with the budget of the DPR building that was cancelled in the budgets of the previous years.
Now, we still have to find another reason behind the rejection of the state capital injection because the budget for the building has been approved.
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