YOGYAKARTA-The effectiveness of the Regional Representatives Council (DPD) office in regions as the mandate of Law 27/2009 on MPR (People’s Consultative Assembly), DPR (House of Representatives), DPD (Regional Representatives Council), and DPRD (Regional Legislative Assembly) is questioned in relation to the authority of the DPD that is still limited, unlike the House of Representatives. A legal observer from the Center for Anti Corruption Studies of UGM, Danang Kurniadi, said that the office of DPD in regions does not guarantee to absorb and accommodate people’s aspirations. "If there is DPD office but the performance of representatives is not optimal, it will be the same and will not be effective and efficient," Danang said in a Seminar 'Assessing the Effectiveness of Representative Office of DPD RI', which was held at Faculty of Law, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Wednesday (1/ 12).
Danang added that another issue that arises is wasteful budget, with the plan to build 33 DPD offices in the region that is estimated to cost more than 1 trillion. On the occasion, Danang actually saw that there is chance for corruption on the procurement of offices. "This is consistent with the result of the Center’s survey related to the biggest influence of procurement of goods and services that creates corruption," he added.
Therefore, Danang expected that if the policy will still run, there are some things that need to be emphasized, namely the management office of the DPD, the daily mechanism of office hour, agenda, and follow-up mechanism.
In line with Danang, legal expert of Atmajaya University, Hestu Cipto Handoyo, also agreed that before focusing on the development of DPD office in regions, he more agreed if the role and authority of DPD are fought first for at least parallel to the authority possessed by the Parliament. "It will not be effective if the position is still just subordinated like now. The effectiveness of the DPD office or aspiration house still depends on the performance of the members as well," said Hestu.
Meanwhile, Chairman of the Committee 1 of DPD RI, Dani Anwar, said that the actual budget amount for the construction of the DPD office in regions is not as big as rumored (over 1 trillion) because it will use the land grant from the provincial government. However, of 33 new provinces, there are about 16 provinces that have provided a letter of approval of land grants. "Actually, if it is reviewed, it will waste money. The law needs to review in order to make one DPD office in Jakarta alone and not in other regions," said Dani.
Another speaker, senior researcher at the Centre for Electoral Reform (Cetro), Refly Harun, assessed the presence of DPD representative office in regions will result in the emergence of large financing burden, as the budget for staff. It means different with DPD office in the region will save the budget.
Refly also assessed the concept of domicile which has been applied to members of the House or Parliament or Regional Legislative Assembly, does not run correctly in an actual way. Therefore, the concept of domicile of the House membership up to parliament needs to be addressed. "I refuse the concept of the representative office of DPD, because it will waste money, for example for the cost of staff and others. In addition, the concept of domicile of the representative has not been implemented properly so that it needs to be addressed," said Refly.