Adding 15 More Seats in the Parliament, Government Will Waste 56 Billion every Year

Adding 15 more seats in Parliament will cause 56 billion budget wasteful spending every year. The Executive Director of Indonesia Budget Center (IBC, Roy Salam, criticizes the members of the Special Committee for the new Elections Law Bill who disparage this budgetary squander.

“I regret the fact that the members of the Special Committee disparage this 56 billion of budgetary squander while, at the same time, President Joko Widodo is doing his best to do austerity,” says Roy in Jakarta (05/30).

According to IBC’s calculation, every parliamentary member cost around 3.7 billion rupiahs a year, which includes: Rp. 694.73 million of salary and other benefits, Rp. 420 million of technical assistants’ salary(up to five technical assistants), Rp. 116.65 million of down payment for a car, Rp. 2.36 billion of recess activities, and Rp. 150 million of operational and procurement of aspiration house program.

This budget does not include the cost for miscellany of facilities such as house, office, and official travel expenses.

Therefore, adding more seats to the Parliament is not the right move, according to Roy, IBC recommends the government to maintain the current total number of seats and think about how to reallocate the seats in local parliament more proportionately.