Amien calls on govt to speed up implementation of autonomy law

JAKARTA (JP): People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) Speaker Amien Rais urged the government on Wednesday to speed up the implementation of the Regional Autonomy Law to allow provinces to gain stronger authority in controlling their natural resources.

Speaking at a seminar on decentralization on oil, gas and energy sectors, the MPR speaker said provinces should be given the right to get a larger share in the distribution of income from oil, gas and other mineral resources.

A fairer arrangement is needed to avoid threats of disintegration which might be raised due to the regions' discontent over revenue-sharing issues from those sectors, he added.

"There should be, however, commitment, consolidation and coordination between central and regional administrations to achieve it, otherwise we will end up like China," he said in his speech.

"In China, governors are allowed to draw up contracts with any party without the central government's consent. It only shifts corruption practices and other irregularities from the central government level to the regional level," he warned, while saying China was reviewing its policy on regional autonomy.

The government will implement the Regional Autonomy Law and the Inter-governmental Fiscal Balance Law beginning next year as part of its commitment to give more authority to local administrations to manage their provinces politically and financially.

However, many resource-rich provinces consider the authority they receive under the new laws as still being inefficient as the central government still controls a larger part of the revenues from oil and gas.

Riau, the country's largest oil producer, is among the provinces which protest the current oil and gas revenue arrangement.

Under the Inter-governmental Fiscal Balance Law, 85 percent of the revenue from oil and 70 percent from gas go to the central government. The provinces will only get a larger revenue share from other mineral resources.

Iin Arifin Takhyan, an expert staff member at the Ministry of Mines and Energy, said the government should change the Oil and Gas Law to allow the provincial administrations to give more power to manage their oil and gas resources.

He said the Oil and Gas Law, which gives state oil and gas company Pertamina special power to control and manage the country's oil and gas sectors, should therefore be amended if the central government was really committed to its decentralization program.

He also said state oil and gas producer Pertamina had to be turned into an independent company to be able to compete with giant oil producers in the world.

The government, under former president Habibie, proposed last year the introduction of a new law to scrap Pertamina's monopoly in the oil and gas sector and to change the state oil and gas company's status into a limited business entity. But the bill was turned down due to a strong lobby launched by former Pertamina president Martiono Hadianto. (09/nvn)