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For House, a year of greed and incompetence

Jakarta Globe - December 20, 2015

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Jakarta – The newly appointed speaker of the House of Representatives, Ade Komaruddin, faces an uphill battled trying to win back public trust for a graft-riddled institution that has arguably performed at its worst in Indonesia's democratic history.

The House had set itself a target of passing 37 bills into law this year; as of last week, it had managed just three.

This makes the House's efforts in 2015 the "worst performance since the start of Reformasi" in 1998, according to Abdul Sahid, a researcher with the group Concerned Citizens for the Indonesian Legislature, or Formappi.

"This is the first time since 1999 that only three laws have been passed in a year," Abdul said as quoted by Detik.com.

Abdul blamed the lack of productivity on the leadership of former speaker Setya Novanto, which was marked by infighting, questionable junkets, attempts to justify public spending on vanity projects, and Setya's central role in an alleged extortion bid against the country's biggest taxpayer, Freeport Indonesia.

Setya resigned last week, just as a House tribunal was about to declare him guilty of ethical violations in the scandal, in which he sought to have 20 percent of Freeport Indonesia's shares, valued at an estimated $4 billion, divested through him.

Setya still retains his position as legislator, however, and his Golkar Party has merely switched him out with Ade, the party's former House caucus chairman.

Under Setya's leadership, "House members seemed to have forgotten their main roles in deliberating issues" in the public interest, Abdul said. "The House instead prioritized its own agendas, such as calling for pork-barrel funds, getting more allowances, and construction projects," he said.

Under Setya, the House also established 40 working and special committees, only three of which actually went on to finish their work. "The results of the rest are unclear," Abdul said.

He argued that the House's performance in 2015 did not justify the Rp 5 trillion in funding allocated to the legislature in the state budget.

The notion that the House has performed poorly this year is echoed in a recent poll by the Indonesian Survey Circle (LSI), which showed that public trust in the institution was down to 40 percent.

The poll, the latest in a series carried out sporadically over the past 10 years, gave the worst results yet, representing a 17 percent drop in approval from the last such survey, conducted in October 2012.

Source: http://jakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/politics/house-year-greed-incompetence/.