City considers streamlining its agencies

JAKARTA (JP): The city administration is studying the possibility of streamlining its 29 agencies by closing some and putting others under one roof, Governor Sutiyoso said yesterday.

He said the move might ensure efficiency, which ultimately would provide better services to the public.

Simplification of the city's agencies is in line with the central government's instruction, he added.

"My staff are still intensively studying the possibility. I hope the results can be presented to me in the near future as we should speed up to realize it."

The move would also be in line with reform demands, he added.

The governor said he has asked his staff to consider the possibility of eliminating agencies whose purpose was obsolete, such as that for forestry.

"I don't see the relevance of this agency in the city, which has almost no forest. Its existence is useless."

The merger of several agencies would create a one-stop service procedure, which could eliminate unnecessary, lengthy bureaucratic requirements.

"People, for example, would no longer need to go to several places to process a particular document," he said.

City councilors supported the government's idea.

Head of Commission D for development affairs, Ali Wongso Sinaga, said the realization of the idea would also contribute significantly to reducing city expenses.

"We should examine any possibility which makes the limited city budget sufficient. I think the simplification of the overlapping agencies is one of the answer," he said yesterday.

Ali suggested the administration first group the agencies according to their primary concerns before merging them.

The city administration's budget for the 1998/1999 fiscal year has already been cut twice. From its initial level of Rp 3.2 trillion, the budget was cut to Rp 2.7 trillion and then to Rp 1.3 trillion as a result of the economic and political crises.

Head of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) faction, Lukman Mokoginta, proposed that city agencies with similar activities, such as plantation, forestry, agriculture, livestock husbandry and fisheries, could be merged into one.

Park and public works agencies could also be put under one roof, while the city's spatial agency, the building control agency, the land's mapping and measuring agency and the mines agency could also be merged into one, he said.

Lukman warned that the simplification process was not an easy job as the administration would have to spend a lot to finance the operational costs for the merging process.

"So the process should be done in steps," he said.

None of the councilors touched on what might become of employees from closed agencies. (ind)