According to Rinto, monitoring of the regional budget (APBD) by the community is important to be carried out at every stage, starting from the preparation stage, ratification, to the implementation and audit stages. "The budget is related to the power relation between the legislative and executive branches, so the possibility of money politics is very large," said Rinto.
Community Organizer
This man, who is known by his friends as an intelligent and knowledgeable figure, really understands how to organize grassroots communities. He and his colleagues at IDEA have poured out his abilities into a number of modules. It is no wonder that these innovative modules are “selling” in various other regions in Indonesia.
"Public education on budget is one of IDEA's main products. Rinto Andriono is one of several reliable community organizers that IDEA has," said Akhiruddin, an activist of the Indonesian Anti-Corruption Movement (GerAK) from Aceh, in his conversation with SH, some time ago.
Although in some regions public participation in budget preparation is beginning to be felt, currently the space for public participation is actually limited to budget expenditure participation. Space for participation from the budget revenue side is not available, even though regional revenue policies can have a direct impact on reducing the welfare of the poor. Even reduced access for the poor to public services, such as health and education, because of the expensive retribution rates. In addition, budget policies in disaster areas are generally not sensitive to the need for disaster risk reduction. In fact, in many areas at high risk of disasters, it shows that regional budget policies actually increase the vulnerability of residents to disasters. For example, the policy of excessive exploitation of mining materials to increase local revenue or infrastructure development that actually poses a threat of disaster to residents.
Needs Supervision
It often happens that officials feel like they are rulers, not public servants, so budget policies in the hands of such officials need to be scrutinized. According to Rinto, massive public campaigns and the development of public policy monitoring networks need to be formed to prevent distortions in budget implementation, such as misallocation and corruption by political elites. Lord Acton's classic statement: power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely, may remind us of the need for a supervisory function in the power system. In general, officials go too far when carrying out their "ruler" role. If the supervisory function is sterile, what will happen to the people? The second child of three siblings hopes that there will be an increase in community empowerment to defend people's basic rights in budget policies, because people's empowerment is the key to opening up spaces for participation in budget policies. The child of Suchem and Suharti appealed that budget policies can truly become public spaces, which are open to all stakeholders in society. Thus, the number of corruption cases due to lack of control from citizens can be reduced.
Rinto in his email to SH again mentioned the fact that shows that currently the room for corruption is still wide open in regional budgeting. If Lord Acton said that power tends to corrupt, and absolute power will corrupt absolutely, then the power of the Indonesian people which has been handed over to the elite, does need to be controlled directly by the people, so that it does not continue to go too far. Come on, people, keep monitoring your regional budget!
Source: Sinar Harapan, Wednesday, May 21, 2008
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