Jayapura, Jubi – The head of Papua’s Financial and Regional Asset Management, Benyamin Arisoy, said the government did not allocate a budget for the New Special Autonomy Law (Otsus) preparations for 2015.
“I want to clarify there is no budget allocated for the New Special Autonomy Law preparation in the Regional Budget Plan 2015. But I admit it was allocated in 2014,” Arisoy told reporters in Jayapura on Tuesday (24/2/2015).
He said Papua Governor Lukas Enembe, Parliament’s members and related government officials have left for Jakarta using the office travel budget instead of Regional Budget.
The statement was made in response to remarks to the contrary by Papuan councillor Yan Mendenas.
“So Mr. Mandenas’ assumption was wrong. Instead as councilor, he should know about it,” he said.
Although he accepted Mandenas’ point of view as positive critic for the government to improve its service; however he expected it should be referred to accurate information to avoid the public opinion misleading.
But speaking about the Special Autonomy that has been implemented for 12 years in Papua, he said both former administration and parliament had no effort to establish a regulation in concerning to the Special Autonomy fund management.
“But in the early period of Governor Lukas Enembe and Vice Governor Klemen Tinal’s administration, the government has just thought and taken action to create a regional regulation to manage the special autonomy fund,” he said.
According to him, the Governor’s policy to distribute 80 percent of fund to each regency/municipality started since 2014 and this year would be the second year. Related to the evaluation of Special Autonomy in the recent administration era, we need 2 or two years ahead to find out whether it has been well implemented of gave benefits to the community.
“With 80 percent allocation for local governments, I hope we could take it as collective responsibility. Thus this fund could certainly use to improve the community welfare in Papua,” he said.
On this occasion, he also said during his assignment as government official, he saw the governor always works at his office or regularly visit the regions. “Even he stays at the office till night. It’s outstanding. As his staff, I am very proud of him. So, people’s thinking about he is rarely at the office was not true. Because if he traveled to other regions, it’s for official business,” he said.
Earlier, the Papua Governor Lukas Enembe said the distribution of 80 percent of Special Autonomy Fund has just started since 2014 and currently steps to the second year. (Alexander Loen/rom)
