Absentee officials may face sanctions

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.