Bandar Lampung Slammed Over luxury Car

Suara Indonesia News - Academics and activists have criticized the Bandarlampung
administration's decision to provide luxury cars worth a total
of Rp 1.8 billion (US$191,000) for two senior officials given
the widespread poverty in the city.

Last week, the Bandarlumpung Legislative Council budget
committee approved the plan to buy a car worth Rp 1.5 billion
for mayor Eddy Sutrisno and one worth Rp 250 million for the
assistant II for economic development Darwin Djafri.

"Neither the mayor nor the committee has any sense of crisis,"
Anti-Corruption Committee organization coordinator Ahmad Yulden
Erwin said Tuesday.

"They prefer to waste money instead of using it to solve the
poverty problems here. Their actions hurt people, especially
poor people."

He pointed out the administration had once said it lacked the
budget to address poverty problems.

Erwin said the Bandarlampung administration was short hundreds
of millions of rupiah needed to fund its healthcare program,
part of the city's poverty alleviation project.

He said the municipality had allocated only Rp 400 million to
provide care for 4,000 impoverished residents, even though there
were 7,000 needing the money.

"About 3,000 poor people are waiting for assistance. They have
not received any help yet," he said. Erwin said finding money to provide healthcare for poor people
was more important than buying cars for officials.

The administration also faces the ongoing problem of
malnutrition among children, he said.

"One of those dozens of malnourished children is living only
hundreds of meters from the mayor's office," Erwin said.

"The mayor should be ashamed."

Syarief Makhya, a political observer from Lampung University,
said the administration's plan to buy two luxury cars should be
dropped because it was out of touch with the reality of
thousands living in poverty and struggling to meet their basic
needs.

"If situation demanded the administration procure cars, it could
buy cheaper ones," said Makhya, adding the high budget
allocation to buy an official car for the mayor reflected the
bureaucrats' lack of empathy for those living in poverty.

"According to the revised regional budget, there are still 3,000
poor people not yet promised healthcare," he said.

The administration's 2008 data show the total number of
impoverished families in Bandarlampung stands at 59,183.
Assuming each family has three members, about 170,000 people --
more than 30 percent of Bandarlampung's total population of
about 500,000 -- are impoverished.

The data show some 1,561,717 poor families in Lampung received
health insurance from the administration through state-run
health insurance firm PT Askes in 2007.

PT Askes' right to manage the healthcare fund was stopped
several months ago. (RED)