Social Accountability for Village Budget Openness (ID0142)

Brief Description of the Commitment

This commitment encourages the realization of the Village Integrity System (SINTESA) in 15 villages in Kupang, Aceh and Jember Regencies. This commitment will strengthen in terms of transparency, participation, and accountability at the village level.

Problem Identification

1. What problems does the commitment aim to address? More than IDR 400 trillion of the State Budget (APBN) was disbursed to village funds from 2015 – 2021. Since Law Number 6 of 2014 (Law 6/2014) on Villages was enacted, village funds have been able to improve the status of villages which has implications for community welfare. Law 6/2014 makes the village be the front porch of Indonesia's development. Village Funds disbursed from the State Budget become a tangible form of village recognition. Villages can independently compile and implement development plans independently based on the principle of deliberation. However, the greater the budget allocation, of course, the greater the risk of corruption. The increase in the village fund budget allocation, unfortunately, is not balanced with the principles of transparency and accountability in its management. So, there are not a few village heads who are entangled in corruption cases. Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) found that cases of corruption enforcement by law enforcement officials (APH) in 2021 occurred the most in the village fund budget sector, namely 154 cases with potential state losses of IDR 233 billion. This practice often occurs considering the weak supervisory agencies at the village level, low community participation in monitoring the Village Budget (APBDes), and inadequate transparency and accountability of village financial management.

2. What are the causes of the problem? The increasing number in corruption cases in the village sector is due to the lack of transparency and accountability in financial management at the village level. In other aspects, the low participation of residents in accessing information and the lack of participation of residents in monitoring programs in the village also contributed to the rampant corruption cases, especially involving village officials. The low participation of residents occurred due to the low public information presented by the village government. The availability of village financial information media in the form of posters and billboards is considered insufficient to provide a complete village financial information. The information needed by the community is village finances which are presented in detail and easily accessible to residents both online and offline. Currently, many innovations have been created to suppress corruptive practices in village financial management, but corruptive practices still occur. In the aspect of financial management, corruption risks occur during the preparation of village budgeting, pricing of goods/services and village financial reporting, where the process has not been carried out openly.

Commitment Description

1. What has been done so far to solve the problem? The Central Information Commission has issued Information Commission Regulation No. 1 of 2018 concerning Village Information Service Standards, but the implementation shows that not many villages implement these standards. In addition, the Ministry of Villages, Development of Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration has also published rules on the publication of village finances through posters and billboards, but this information is still considered not informative enough and more detailed information is needed. There is already an application to record village financial management, but in practice this information has not been accessible to the public, In fact, the risk of corruption in village financial management is usually found in the process of recording the original village income and implementing the mark-up of village expenditures.

2. What solution are you proposing? To answer the problems that occur, there will be strengthening in the aspects of governance in planning, implementing, and reporting and accountability of rural budgets (APBDes), strengthening aspects of supervision in village financial management, strengthening the quality of public services by ensuring complaint management and strengthening information and documentation at the village level, and strengthening village community institutions in the implementation of village development.

3. What results do you want to achieve by implementing this commitment? This commitment will make the village government more open in providing information in accordance with the Law on Public Information Disclosure, the village government will also be more active in involving residents in the implementation of village financial management and open a supervisory room in development management at the village level, and the existence of a village financial management portal that is easily accessible to residents.

Commitment Analysis

1. How will the commitment promote transparency? This commitment will promote the government to realizing the Integrity System at the village level by assistancing the village apparateus to publish their village financial budget information and to encourage the village government to publish more detailed of village spending work plans. The way to achieve it by taking advantage from the existing system by emphasizing the aspect of information disclosure at the village level.

2. How will the commitment help foster accountability? This commitment will have an impact on strengthening accountability due to the collaboration between villagers and village officials which is carried out collaboratively in the policy making process.

3. How will the commitment improve citizen participation in defining, implementing, and monitoring solutions? Citizen participation can occur with the publication of village financial management so that the community could supervise and participating there.

Commitment Planning (Milestones | Expected Outputs | Expected Completion Date)

Published APBDes and APBDes accountability through village online website | The publication of APBDes and APBDes accountability through the village website | December 2024

Strengthening the residents in village financial supervision | The implementation of strengthening residents in village financial supervision | December 2024

Action Plan Review

Commitment 8. Social accountability of village budget openness

● Verifiable: Yes

● Does it have an open government lens? Yes

● Potential for results: Modest