Absentee officials may face sanctions

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The city's civil servants straggled back into the office on Monday, the first day back to work after the long Idul Fitri holiday.

Of about 6,000 civil servants at City Hall only about 250 attended an Idul Fitri gathering that was held at 8 a.m.

There are about 12,000 civil servants in all of Jakarta and their official working hours are from 7:30 a.m. until 4 p.m.

At City Hall, more civil servants began to trickle in at about 9:30 a.m. They greeted their colleagues and swapped stories about their holidays. Very few of the civil servants seemed to be at their desks working.

Governor Sutiyoso vowed to impose stern sanctions on civil servants who failed to arrive at the office on time after the Idul Fitri holiday. These promised sanctions range from delayed raises to the suspension of promotions.

"Sanctions will be handed down to civil servants who fail to follow regulations, such as anyone who was absence without leave today," Sutiyoso said on the sidelines of the Idul Fitri gathering.

The governor canceled his scheduled inspection of city offices to attend the opening ceremony of the Asian Network of 21 Major Cities at the Borobudur Hotel in Central Jakarta.

Instead, a joint team from the City Audit Agency and the City Human Resources Agency carried out the inspection.

Audit agency head Firman Hutajulu said 874 out of 12,362 civil servants were absent on Monday.

"There were 190 civil servants absent without leave, 112 called in sick, 291 are on leave, 79 were granted a day off for personal reasons, 135 are attending training courses and 257 others are out of town on official business."

Referring to a circular issued by the Office of the State Minister for Administrative Reform in 2003, Firman said those civil servants who were absent without leave could face disciplinary sanctions, including the suspension of periodical raises for up to a year and a delay in promotions.

"For those civil servants who were also absent without leave last year, they could face salary reductions or a demotion by one rank," he said.

He emphasized that the administration believed these tough sanctions were appropriate in light of the fact that the administration had already given civil servants about 10 days off for the holiday.