Bureaucracy must be tamed

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.