Amid the debates on national debt and people’s purchasing power, the House of Representatives has proposed building a new building complex with a budget of Rp 7.25 trillion (US$542.7 million).
The House has never performed at the level expected by the public. In the past two years, the proposed National Legislation Program (Prolegnas) has not achieved its targets for various reasons.
In 2015, only three out of 37 priority bills proposed in the Prolegnas were passed. The following year, only 10 of 50 bills were passed. This year, of 50 bills, only four have been passed as of July.
House deputy speaker Fadli Zon said the House’s budget was relatively small compared to the executive branch. It currently takes up 0.34 percent of the state budget, an amount that already includes personnel expenditure managed by the House secretariat general.
Kompas reported on Sunday, Aug 13, that the House had deemed the construction of a new building to be necessary as the existing building was not adequate to support the lawmakers’ work. Several lawmakers have been reported as saying they were afraid the Nusantara I building where they worked could collapse or that its elevators would break down at any moment.
The House is said to have communicated with the Public Works and Public Housing Ministry regarding the project’s plans. House deputy speaker Fahri Hamzah said the ministry had agreed that the Nusantara I building was inadequate. Furthermore, the number of House personnel currently reaches 7,000 individuals.
This is not the first time the House has proposed the construction of a new building. In August 2015, the House proposed a similar project for similar reasons with a budget of Rp 1.6 trillion. However, the public rejected the proposal.
Last week, the House revived the plan. This time, however, the plan also included the construction of an apartment building for the legislators. The rationale was that the legislators’ housing complex in Kalibata was prone to traffic jams and was too far away from their office in Senayan.
The plan then became a subject of public furor, in light of the fact that the government still needs to make loans to accelerate infrastructure development across the nation. Furthermore, the people’s purchasing power is following a downward trend.
We see many other things that need to be prioritized over the construction of a new building for the House. The timing of the proposal is wrong as we are heading toward a general election and there are fears that the fund would be misused in the interest of political parties. It would be wiser if the plan were reconsidered to prioritize benefits for the people.
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