House commission agrees to increase defense budget

The House of Representatives (DPR)`s Commission I has agreed to increase the budget for defense and the military (TNI) by Rp10 trillion in 2010.

"We agreed to increase the budget for defense and TNI by Rp10 trillion in 2010 to promote education and training, maintainance and procurement of main weapons system equipment," House Commission I chairman Theo L Sambuaga said here on Monday.

The 2009 budget for the ministry of defense and the TNI totalled Rp33.6 trillion and in the first quarter of the year they recieved an additional budget of Rp38.66 billion to support the Waspada (alert) strategy intelligence operations and 28.10 percent of it had been distributed to organizational units of the ministry or TNI.

Defense minister Juwono Sudarsono said the budget was intended for building and developing the strength of state defense at organizatonal or personnel level as well as for improving and maintaning materials as well as means and facilities for supporting operations at offices or system development.

He said following a decline in the defense budget his office in cooperation with the TNI Headquarters were focussing on five areas namely concrete operations support, operational readiness and preparedness, maintainance of main weapons system equipment, training and education and welfare of the soldiers.

The funds also covered non-war military operations (OMSP). "Whatever the situation is we have to pay attention to OMSP which is one of the TNI`s community tasks," he said.(*)