Autonomy gives limited economic power: Official

JAKARTA (JP): The autonomy law gives only limited authority to provincial administrations in managing their economic affairs, a senior provincial official said here on Friday.

Setia Hidayat the head of West Java's Regional Development Planning Agency (Bappeda) said most of the provincial administrations felt that the autonomy policy was still too weak to empower the local economies.

He suspects that the lack of economic authority given to local governments stems from the reluctance of some economic-related ministries to delegate their authority.

"It might be because they (ministries) think regions are not prepared to handle autonomy," he told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of a seminar on autonomy held by the Indonesian Public Policy Society and the Center of Strategic and Policy Studies of Nahdlatul Ulama's General Board.

He declined to name any ministries but said the reluctance was obvious in the recently issued government regulation no 25 on regional authorities as part of the implementation of the autonomy law.

Under autonomy laws, No 22/1999 on regional government and No 25/1999 on intergovernmental fiscal balance, regions will receive greater authority to manage their economy. But details of the delegation of authority are stipulated in the government regulation.

But, according to Setia, the regulation on the implementation of the autonomy law issued early this month, is disappointing because it only gives a little authority to local governments in generating income through their autonomy status.

In the regulation, Setia said, the central government seemed to have first decided how much authority they needed, and then handed the rest over to the regions.

"It's a residual autonomy," he said.

With the lion's share still in the hands of the central government the regulation had reduced the meaning of the autonomy, he said.

For example, he said that regions felt the central government's role in determining regional budgets was still dominant.

He said part of the government allocated funds to the regions would still be under the control of the central government.

Setia said the use of these funds would be predetermined by the central government.

"Local governments see this as interference," he said.

According to him, the central government doubts that regions are prepared to handle greater authority was baseless.

"It remains unfounded until regions have a chance first to apply the autonomy," he said.

Furthermore, he said, the central government's reluctance to share their authority was affecting autonomy preparations.

"Thus far we've received inadequate assistance from the central government to prepare ourselves for the autonomy," he explained.

What the regions need most, Setia said, are technical assistance, guidelines, and sharing of experiences.

He added that the central government must suit their assistance to the each regions' unique situation.

Social science expert Benyamin Hussein of the University of Indonesia expressed doubt that regions could prepare themselves to exercise full autonomy by next year.

According to him, the central government was too slow in preparing the regions.

"Some ministries think decentralization is a zero sum game," he said,

He said these ministries should understand that there was no dichotomy between the central government and the local government as decentralization is intended for the welfare of the people.

Benyamin suggested the government standardize the delegation process to accelerate the implementation.(bkm)