Financial Arrangement Performance of Makassar City Local Council Study of good governance principle in legalizing and executing local council budget

Abstract

Institutional reform and public financial management by means of decentralization and or regional autonomy policy has strengthened local council. Regional autonomy policy has given local council the strategic position by having several rights and privileges namely interpellation, inquiry, expressing opinion, protocol, administration and financial rights. Yet, institutional reform has not brought many changes toward the increase of local council performance. The implementation of regional autonomy itself also raises several issues such as corruption and budgetary mark-up which involve executive and local council. Therefore, the objectives of this research are: 1) to analyze the legalizing and executing procedure of Makassar City Local Council in 2010, 2) to analyze the accountability, transparency, responsiveness, effectiveness, and efficiency of Makassar City Local Council performance in legalizing and executing local council budget in 2010, 3) to analyze the influencing factors toward the performance of Makassar City Local Council in legalizing and executing budget, and 4) to propose an alternative performance model of Makassar City Local Council in legalizing and executing budget. The procedure of legal drafting, legalizing and executing of local council budget in Makassar City has not yet met the administration and legal procedures. It was because of the local council had not made 2009 work plan as the fundamental element for budgetary drafting in 2010; the local council leaders did not directly involved in the regional, local council and procurement budgetary drafting. The performance accountability of Makassar City Local Council in legalizing and executing local council budget is not yet sufficient for not: a) performing external responsibility report to the people, and b) involving any civilian representatives in drafting, discussing and legalizing local council budget. The performance transparency of Makassar City local council in legalizing and executing budget is also not sufficient for not: a) publicly published the local council budget to the people and only doing so partially if there is any demand from particular group of people, and b) providing proper media for people to access the information of local council budget. The performance responsiviness of Makassar City Local Council in legalizing and executing local council budget cannot be classified as responsive enough for their limited effort in encompassing, accommodating, and following up any people’s aspiration. The media to encompass and accommodate people’s aspiration is not yet prop erly provided. These lacks of performance had led Makassar City Local Council towards the ineffectiveness and inefficiency in legalizing and executing local council budget and the procurement of goods and services as well as capital expenses. In order to govern these performance prolems, this article proposed an alternative performance model to increase local council performance especially in implementing good governance principles in executing and executing local council budget through by means of indirect participation mechanism in which people’s aspiration can be tunneled through independent institution(s). The independent institution(s) convey people’s aspiration to local council and any result or policy produced afterward is conveyed to the people by local council through independent institution(s). By using this alternative model, three pillars of governance namely state, civilians, and private (independent organization), will mutually interact each other. Mechanism of budget determination and utilization will be materialized effectively and efficiently if it is supported by three approaches which are; political approach, administration and management, and legal approach.