Jakarta lap dance

Fantastic story. But bet you 3-1 that we won’t see the end of this story. It will evaporate like so many good stories do and no one will be held accountable.

In the meantime, there’s all these civil servants, the relatives and their dogs bridging the Digital Divide in their homes…

Where have all the laptops gone, group questions

Indah Setiawati ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Fri, 11/13/2009 2:18 PM  |  City

The Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency (Fitra) revealed that from 2007 to 2009, the city administration had allocated Rp 17.35 billion (US$1.83 million) to procure computers, of which none cropped up in the city's assets inventory.

Fitra secretary-general Yuna Farhan said Fitra suspected the computers had been claimed as personal assets.

“From 2007 to 2009, assuming an average price of Rp 18 million, there should be at least 965 notebook computers in city administration offices,” he said in a press release Thursday.

Brand-name notebook computers such as Acer, Toshiba and Apple retail on average for less than Rp 15 million. Fitra also questioned the administration's formulation of the budget.

“The formulation *of the computer budget* seems haphazard and careless and leaves room for abuse. The prices quoted varied wildly, showing no relation to the computer's specifications,” Yuna added.

He cited an allocation of Rp 549,481,800 for “a personal computer, laptop and printer” in the budget.

This violates the principles of transparency, efficiency and effectiveness in budget formulation as required in 2003 and 2004 laws, a 2005 government regulation and a 2007 ministerial regulation on regional and state budget management, Fitra said.

“Such costly budgeting may continue because the administration has allocated Rp 3.63 billion to procure computers for 2010,” Yuna said, adding that such practices should be stopped, as it would lead to price mark ups.

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