Religious Affairs Ministry defends budget

JAKARTA. The Religious Affairs Ministry said on Tuesday that it still needed more money to manage the thousands of religious-based schools across the country.

It questioned the accuracy of a report published by the Finance Ministry that said the former’s budget on average increased by 25 percent annually in the last five years. It is second only to the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, with 26.1 percent, the report says.

The Religious Affairs Ministry’s budget, according to the report, rose from Rp 14.9 trillion (US$1.3 billion) in 2008 to Rp 45.4 trillion in 2013, an increase an opposition lawmaker has branded “extreme”.

“The fact is, it’s not 25 percent according to our data,” the ministry’s planning division head Syamsuddin told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

He argued that the budget for 2008 was not Rp 14.9 trillion as the Finance Ministry claimed, but Rp 17.59 trillion. The number jumped by 54 percent to Rp 27.184 trillion in 2009. But after that, the growth never exceeded 15 percent, he argued. According to data from the Religious Affairs Ministry, the average annual rise is only 21 percent.

The number is still higher than the budget increases for both the Agriculture Ministry and the Education and Culture Ministry, which are 17.9 percent and 12.9 percent, respectively.

Despite the rise, Syamsuddin claimed the amount of money allocated to his institution was insufficient.

“People may perceive the Rp 49.6 trillion for the 2014 budget is very big for us, but in fact the budget is less than what we requested from the government. We actually need Rp 55 trillion to fund all our programs,” he said.

The official said his ministry spent 85 percent of its budget on education, only 10 percent on religious affairs and 5 percent on public service. “Of the 49.6 trillion budget, around Rp 43 trillion has been allocated to education. That’s because religious-based schools and universities, private or state-funded, are under our supervision.”

The ministry managed 98,379 Islamic schools and universities in 2012, according to the ministry’s directorate general for education. The Education and Culture Ministry, which will receive Rp 82.7 trillion next year, is currently managing more than 260,000 state and private schools and universities.

Finance Minister Chatib Basri said the budget allocation for the Religious Affairs Ministry had increased since 2009, the government was required by the Constitution to allocate 20 percent of its budget to education.

“At first, I thought it was the Education and Culture Ministry that took care of the budget for teachers at religious-based schools, but in fact it was the Religious Affairs Ministry that handled it. Every time the state budget increases, the budget for the Religious Affairs Ministry will also increase,” he said.

Said Abdullah, a member of the House of Representatives’ Commission VIII overseeing religious affairs, said the ministry should no longer manage education as it was the responsibility of the Education and Culture Ministry.

He added that the budget for education was prone to misappropriation under the Religious Affairs Ministry, which scored poorly in the integrity index issued by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

“It is better for the ministry to just focus on taking care of religion because we all know that religious intolerance is rising in the country,” the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) lawmaker told the Post. (The Jakarta Post)