Koh EweSingapore and
Astudestra AjengrastriJakarta
Weeks after widespread protests swept Indonesia over the excessive pays of lawmakers, a new allowance raise has unleashed fresh public anger.
Lawmakers will now get 702 million rupiah ($42,400; £31,800) in recess allowances – a near-double increase from the previous allowance of 400 million rupiah, said the country’s deputy house speaker.
The recess allowance is meant to support lawmakers carrying out their official duties, like visiting constituents, when parliament is not in session.
The protests earlier in August were triggered primarily by a $3,000 monthly housing allowances given to lawmakers – nearly 10 times the minimum wage in Jakarta. These were later cut, in a bid to quell anger.
August’s protests began after thousands demonstrated against the housing allowances for MPs. But they soon spilled into a wider protest over corruption and economic inequality in South East Asia’s largest economy.
And now, news of the latest recess allowance hike – which kicked in on 3 October – has renewed controversy around this.
Indonesian lawmakers take around five recesses a year, during which they visit their electoral districts and gather feedback from residents.
The hike in recess allowances is meant to match the increased activities by lawmakers during their recesses, Sufmi Dasco Ahmad told reporters on Saturday. He told Reuters that the previous allowance did not take into account the rise in food and transport prices.
Dasco also said on Monday that the House of Representatives would release a publicly accessible app where lawmakers are required to report on their expenditure of recess funds, to allow Indonesians to monitor their spending.
It is not unheard of for lawmakers in other countries to receive allowances on top of their basic salaries to cover their official duties to their constituents. In Australia, the electorate allowance ranges from $25,000 to $37,000 per year depending on the size of the lawmaker’s constituency.
The latest incident is part of a growing anger over what many Indonesians perceive to be the impunity of the country’s political elite.
“It’s like Indonesians have been pranked,” Lucius Karus from Formappi, a non-profit parliamentary watchdog, told local media outlets.
“We were satisfied by the abolition of the housing allowance … but, in fact, another fantastic allowance has appeared.”
Part of this anger also stems from reports that a number of lawmakers had received an extra 54 million rupiah in recess allowance. Authorities later said this was due to human error and that the money had been clawed back.
“[The government’s] behavior is not surprising,” wrote another X user. “What is surprising is why the Indonesian people still want to choose them.”
