Part 1 of 2: Will revision of the law on regional autonomy fail?
Part 1 of 2: Will revision of the law on regional autonomy fail?
P. Agung Pambudhi, Executive Director, Monitoring Committee of
Regional Autonomy Implementation (KPPOD), Jakarta
The White Paper of the government's economic policies after
the ending of its cooperation with the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) may set a deadline for a revision of the law on
regional autonomy (Law No. 22/1999).
At its own initiative, the legislative body of the House has
sent a bill on this revision to the leaders of the House. Still,
I'm afraid, this revision will "surely" fail.
But revision is bound to fail if the target is only to meet
the deadline before the 2004 general elections. The revision will
be categorized as successful if the substance of the law in
question is revised for the better and also if the revision is
widely accepted by all the stakeholders. Let's now find out why
this pessimism about the revision of the law on regional
autonomy, a task mandated by Stipulation of the People's
Consultative Assembly No. IV/MPR/2000, should be raised as an
issue, at least in terms of the participation in the drawing up
of the revision and the interest of the stakeholders.
As a political agenda, the revision of the law on regional
autonomy will be successful only if the interests of the main
stakeholders are adequately accommodated. It is still fresh in
our memory how a year ago the idea of revising this particular
law was not popular on two counts: First, because the law had
just been enforced and second, the central government was yet to
popularize the idea of this law to the main stakeholders such as
regional administrations, the association of regional
administrations, interest groups such as business circles and
non-government organizations as well as observers of public
administration affairs.
Unfortunately, the refusal to have the law revised was then
voiced without hardly any argumentation about the substance of
the projected revision. (The only proper argumentation then made
was the "disbanding of the regional legislative assemblies".)
Clearly, the revision was rejected largely because of a suspicion
that the central government was nurturing a hidden agenda to
bring back centralization. It was believed that the government
was "half-hearted" in enforcing regional autonomy.
The substance of the revision aside, the participation of the
stakeholders in the drafting of the revision of this law on
regional autonomy has assumed great significance.
Another important role is the involvement of the executive
elements of other central government institutions such as the
forestry, trade and industry, manpower and communications
ministries, the office of the state minister of environmental
affairs, the land agency and so forth. It is still a big question
mark as to whether these ministries and agency have a uniformity
of ideas in defining the scope of their authority in the context
of regional autonomy.
Reportedly, the technical team of the government assigned to
draw up the revision, headed by the home ministry, is made up of
various governmental representatives. Theoretically, this team
should accommodate the interests of various sectors. Likewise,
according to a member of the team, the draft of the revision has
always been distributed to other relevant government institutions
so that they can provide the team with useful input.
However, given the lack of harmony in the inter-ministerial
cooperation, it is still highly doubtful whether a synergy of the
interests of these ministries will ever be successfully
established. Take, for example, the scope of authority in land
affairs. Will this authority continue to rest with the regional
administrations or will it become the authority of the (central)
government? All these years, there has been a tendency to give
regional administrations only an insignificant role in land
affairs (the latest example is the issuance of Presidential
Decree No. 34/2003).
Another example can be found in the manpower affairs. Recently
(Oct. 15, 2003), the manpower minister stated his stance clearly
in a meeting with the employers association and workers' unions
that regional autonomy was not necessary for the manpower
affairs. He clearly said that manpower affairs should remain
within the authority of the central government!
It is necessary for the government to sound out directly the
aspirations of a number of regency/municipality administrations
in terms of limited representation of the grouping of specific
features of these regencies/municipalities (on the basis of the
availability of human resources, transportation infrastructure,
educational level, culture, border areas of a country, etc.) in
order to be able to obtain a direct picture of these particular
regencies/municipalities because their aspirations may not be
accommodated in the associations.
Regions with poor natural resources, for example, often query
whether "state's revenues from man-made resources, like the
revenues from natural resources, must be included in the revenue-
sharing scheme. Another example is a question about whether or
not a region with a large fiscal capacity may receive budgeting
allocation (DAU) as the law falls short of stipulating this
matter.
As a result of the absence of this stipulation, "rich" regions
have also received their DAU, a practice that has indirectly
reduced the potential portion of DAU for other regions. Given the
differences in interest, limited interests of the managing boards
of these associations of regional administrations and the scope
of these organizations, the crucial points of the revision may
not be accommodated.
The points that may be accommodated will perhaps include such
things as the direct election of regional heads by the people,
not by the regional legislative assemblies, the annual
accountability reports prepared by regional heads, the
composition and position of the assemblies and so forth. These
are indeed important items but they are yet to sufficiently
represent the real needs of a region.
So far, we have touched upon only the government side. Even
this discussion is yet to cover the interests of provincial
administrations, let alone taking into account the interests of
other stakeholders such as the business community. They may be
regarded as one of the groups that regional autonomy has
"victimized". They have to comply with various regional
regulations on the collection of levies, business discrimination
and so forth.
In many cases, these regional regulations should not be
enforced because they are in conflict with other laws and also
because they are not based on the principle of efficiency in
economic activity management. In a highly competitive global
economy and at a time when the business community is
concentrating to introduce internal efficiency, our economic edge
has been weakened by new uncertainties in the regions.
The root cause is an unclear scope of authority on the part
of government levels as regulated in Law No. 22/1999.
Therefore, for the business community, a revision of the law
on regional autonomy will be meaningful only if the law is
focused on the scope of authority, sources of revenues and models
of regional autonomy monitoring, the three areas that will
directly affect business activities.
Meanwhile, it is also necessary to take into account the
opinions that non-governmental organizations have voiced as these
organizations can be partly considered as representing the
public. Non-governmental organizations may be interested in
matters linked with the position of public participation in the
implementation of regional autonomy. Law No. 22/1999 is yet to
accommodate this interest. Otherwise the public won't complain
about the laws related to regional autonomy.
Matters of interest to the public may include the realization
of the voting right in the election of a regional head, the
public's mechanism of control over the executive and legislative
powers, the public's involvement in the drawing up of regional
policies, natural resources management and so forth.