Business and regional autonomy

Even before regional autonomy became a fact, fears had been expressed by the business community that regional governments would try to increase their revenues by issuing all kinds of tax rulings and regulations. These fears have now become the reality and consequently, last Wednesday, the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) presented their complaints to President Megawati Sukarnoputri.

Naturally, no region wants to see all its wealth siphoned off to Jakarta while the land is ravaged and only waste is left. That is what happened under the so-called contracts of work in the past. Those contracts practically ignored the interests of the regions in question.

The important thing to do in this case is to review the existing law and give the Ministry of Home Affairs more time -- which is two weeks at present -- to consider whether or not to endorse any regional regulations concerning this matter. It might also be worth considering whether endorsement by the Ministry of Home Affairs is needed, or whether a draft regional regulation should be declared automatically void if fails to obtain ministerial approval. In this case, however, the impression of foot-dragging by the home ministry must be avoided to prevent the regional administrations from stagnating.

-- Bisnis Indonesia, Jakarta