Basic services within govt's reach: Minister

M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta

The government can improve basic services for its needy citizens, if it manages to sensibly and effectively allocate the resources at its disposal, a minister says.

State Minister/Head of the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) Kwik Kian Gie said on Tuesday the government would have to shift its priority from financing programs beneficial to a small number of people to providing more resources for social development that would affect more citizens.

"Currently, more than 20 percent of government spending is allocated for subsidizing a small number of state-owned enterprises," Kwik said during the launch of the 2004 Indonesia Human Development Report here.

He said that the government should reduce such spending and redirect the resources to the social sector.

In the global Human Development Report, Indonesia ranked 111 out of 177 countries surveyed, up from last year's position of 112 from a list of 175 countries (not down as earlier reported).

The country report was jointly commissioned by the Central Statistics Agency, Bappenas and the United Nations Development Program.

Kwik also said revenue from the privatization drive of state- owned enterprises in recent years should also be invested in providing citizens with access to food, health, education and physical security.

The government should also seek more funds from taxes, which currently account for only 12 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), to finance the investment in human development, he said.

However, Kwik warned that the resources allocation would be meaningless if the country failed to systematically stamp out corruption.

"The quality of the government spending has at times been so low due to widespread corruption," Kwik said.

The report said that Indonesia would need to spend over Rp 50 trillion (US$5.5 billion) more to provide key civil and economic rights -- basic education, basic health, food and physical security.

It said that for all the basic services, public expenditure would only increase Indonesia's gross domestic product from 3 percent to 6 percent.

The report also highlighted the widening gap between the country's regions. It reported that a large number of provinces in the eastern part of the country were poorly developed as shown by their human development index.

Jakarta was the province with the highest HDI in the country with 75.6 points, compared to West Nusa Tenggara which was 30th with a HDI index of 57.8 points.

UNDP resident representative Bo Asplund said in some regencies, the administrations could not even meet the cost of basic education while others received disproportionate support from the central government.

"As Indonesia moves forward with its decentralization drive, uneven development has resulted in some provinces doing well, while others are lagging behind," he said.