Bureaucracy must be tamed

By A. Chaedar Alwasilah

BANDUNG (JP): Indonesian bureaucrats have recently been criticized for their failure to maintain national development and to distribute the fruits of economic growth among the people.

Tremendous economic achievements dating from the early days of the New Order in 1966 have been overlooked amid the present economic chaos. This sad state of affairs will persist until major political reforms are carried out. Critics vehemently assert that the government of Indonesia lacks the trust of the people and a drive to regain public trust and confidence is a matter of necessity.

The calls for political reform can be attributed to a number of flaws in the state bureaucracy, flaws which are common throughout the world. There are three major problems with bureaucracies, incapacity, a tendency to expand and to develop an oligarchic power structure.

In 1921, Thorstein Veblen described what he called "trained incapacity" in bureaucracies, resulting from a propensity to mechanically apply established rules and regulations. This makes them inefficient, inflexible and often incapable of adjusting during times of rapid change.

The time consuming palaver one must go through to obtain a driving license in Indonesia illustrates this point nicely. When I obtained a license I had to wait for nine hours before it was ready. Licenses can only be issued by district level police stations, which have become swamped by a burgeoning demand. Some individuals exploit the resultant delays by offering an express service, for an extra fee. Those who cannot or will not pay extra must wait -- an example of one of the many privileges available to the rich but not to the poor of our country.

The inflexible and illogical nature of the system is further illustrated by the common practice of submitting a collective application for a license. This has lead to many people obtaining a driving license without being able to drive since their names were included on the collective application.

To improve the procedure, the police department should allow subdistrict police stations to issue licenses or, better still, tender the task in the private sector, a common practice in the United States.

In addition to this incapacity, a bureaucracy will tend to expand as it seeks to establish a stronger system. The status quo is maintained as it adds new subordinates to the hierarchy. As it enlarges, a bureaucracy will become increasingly inefficient and less proficient in serving the public. An extensive bureaucracy also curbs democracy. Unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats are corrupted by power and are reluctant to relinquish authority in any way.

The nature of a bureaucracy inevitably leads to an oligarchic structure. Power becomes concentrated among a small number of individuals who use this to advance their own interests. Beneath the smoke screens of national cohesion and national development, bureaucrats have a taken a stranglehold grasp on national governance.

Robert Michels (1911) called this flaw the "iron law of oligarchy". When power becomes concentrated among a small number of individuals, a bureaucracy ceases to serve the nation, instead serving its own members who in turn become insensitive to public problems.

In the midst of the monetary crises people are exasperated to see bureaucrats flaunting their wealth. They have elegant houses and expensive cars. Oblivious to the crisis and lacking sensitivity, their children study abroad and their wives shop in foreign cities. Concern over suffering at grassroots level has evaporated along with the oft-touted spirit of social solidarity. For example, ordinary people felt angered and alienated by recent reports of newly appointed legislators insisting upon their entitlement to a new car.

In addition to the three aforementioned flaws, the bureaucracy is anti-intellectual. Academics who join the bureaucracy tend to forget the purity of academia, becoming aggressive toward critics, whom they perceive as a threat to the status quo. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to be a true intellectual and a professional bureaucrat at the same time. Intellectual values and bureaucratic norms are simply irreconcilable.

Of our 3,965,778 civil servants, only 18.59 percent have a college background and 0.01 percent have a doctoral qualification, according to a 1995 report by the National Board of Statistics. About 11 percent have elementary school diplomas, 8.61 percent have junior high school diplomas and 61.42 completed senior high school (Media Indonesia March 19, 1997).

If these statistics are correct, we can say with great confidence that the majority of bureaucrats do not possess a body of knowledge sufficient to understand ever changing social problems. Their limited vision prevents them from thinking critically and they tend to be obedient and submissive to their oligarchic superiors.

There should be a collective commitment to tame and humanize our arrogant bureaucrats, who have failed to manage the nation's economy. P4 courses, a government-funded scheme to promote the values of Pancasila, has been successful in popularizing the concept through all age groups, from school children to top officials. However, the campaign has been less successful in developing trustworthy and efficient bureaucrats and entrepreneurs.

Compounded by economic turmoil, the poor caliber of our bureaucrats has lead to calls for political reform. The essence of any reform should be to restructure the bureaucracy so that it can better serve the public, not the other way round.

It is also worth pondering Amien Rais' call for national repentance. A sincere desire to ask forgiveness should recognize past misconduct and make a firm pledge not to commit the same errors in the future. The government must attend to the grassroots of society and view criticism as part and parcel of public participation in national development. To err is human, to forgive is divine.

The writer is a lecturer at the Institute of Teacher Training (IKIP) in Bandung, West Java.