House to decide on KPK law revision, tax amnesty

JAKARTA. The House of Representatives discussed the inclusion of the draft revision of Law No.30/2002 on the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and the tax amnesty bill in the priority deliberation list of the 2015 National Legislation Program (Prolegnas) in a plenary session on Tuesday evening.

The plenary session should have been held on Dec.8 but it was delayed as the number of House members present did not meet the quorum.

During Tuesday’s session, members of several House factions engaged in a heated debate. Several members of the Gerindra Party rejected the revision of the 2002 KPK Law while Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) members said the revision should be the government's initiative. Meanwhile, the Golkar Party insisted that the draft revision of the KPK Law should be included in the priority deliberation list of the 2015 Prolegnas.

Gerindra Party politician Nizar Zahro rejected the inclusion of both the tax amnesty bill and the KPK Law revision on the priority deliberation list.

"These two bills are not urgent," Nizar said.

Meanwhile, PKS politician Nasir Djamil said the KPK Law revision should be submitted as a government initiative. He argued that it would be easier for the government to consolidate anti-graft related issues in the KPK Law revision with the anti-graft body if the revision was a government initiative.

"It’s important for the government to accept the KPK Law revision as its initiative because it would be easier for it to consolidate the bill with the law enforcement body," Nasir said during the plenary session on Tuesday.

Commenting on the ongoing split of opinion among House members, Golkar politician Mukhamad Misbakhun, who also serves in the House legislative body (Baleg), highlighted that the two bills had passed quite a long process of discussion in the Baleg and were already agreed upon by all parties.

He further pointed out that the plenary session should serve as a place to achieve an agreement, in which any discussion in the session should no longer focus on technical issues, such as had been discussed in the Baleg.

The plenary session was scheduled for 10 a.m., but started at 11.35 a.m. As many as 285 House members out of 555 House members attended the session.
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