Better pay for civil servants

Better pay for civil servants

The hope that living conditions will improve for civil servants and military personnel appears to be justified now that the government has approved a proposal by the House of Representatives to revise the state budget for the 1999/2000 fiscal year by increasing the volume (of state revenues and expenditures) by Rp 1.4 trillion, from Rp 218.203 trillion to Rp 219.603 trillion. Such a hope is justified because all of that growth is designated to increase the salaries of civil servants and military personnel.

Increasing salaries in these two fixed-income categories is indeed an urgent matter, especially considering our intent to establish clean governance as one of the main objectives of the current reform movement. This is easier to achieve if decent living standards can be assured for the government apparatus.

For the longer term, however, the government should be thinking about establishing a lean, efficient and effective bureaucracy. If this can be achieved, the government and legislators would be freed from the task of having to find ways of increasing the salaries of civil servants and military personnel, who -- in the lower echelons in particular -- are at present being paid minimal wages. Unless such a strategic plan exists, it will not be easy for us to establish a body of governance that is clean, authoritative and efficient.

-- Bisnis Indonesia, Jakarta