A bloated Cabinet

President Megawati Soekarnoputri really deserves praise and thumbs up for at least two things. The first is that she had, this year, led the country in holding a legislative and direct presidential election that ran smoothly and peacefully and brought Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) and his running mate Yusuf Kalla to power as president and vice president. The second, she had postponed deliberating the State Ministry Bill which had been proposed by the House of Representatives four months before the Sept. 20 presidential runoff.

The bill which was initiated by the House consisted of 23 ministries divided into eight portfolio ministries and 15 non- portfolio ministries. Although there were repeated requests from the House for Megawati to appoint the government representative to deliberate the bill, she has made no decision so far and left the bill unendorsed.

It is a "blessing in disguise" for the president-elect SBY, because if the bill had been endorsed, SBY could have been in difficult position to form his Cabinet as Megawati's government proposal was not very different from the House's with around 26 ministries.

Now, the president-elect SBY is sure to form his Cabinet with 34 ministries, two ministries fatter than the present Megawati Cabinet with 32 ministries (The Jakarta Post, Oct. 12). This actually is in contrast with public demands for a more lean and efficient bureaucracy, with public pressure increasing over the past five years that it be restructured.

With 34 ministries to help SBY's government, he would no doubt have to recruit more civil servants and consequently spend more tax payers' money to pay them.

One may guess what SBY is doing with regard to his Cabinet structure. I hope it is only a strategy so as not to create dissent among civil servants by trimming his government, but to accommodate his coalition partners first "that helped him win the election," in his government and after that phase by phase, restructure his Cabinet after two or three years" by endorsing the above bill, as demanded by the public. But if he keeps the bloated Cabinet as it is, it will cause resistance from the regions (provincial, regental, and municipal governments) because some of them have been restructuring their institutions and civil servants since 2003 according to the government regulation No. 8/2003.

M. RUSDI Jakarta