City needs to abolish all its districts
City needs to abolish all its districts
Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The Jakarta administration should dissolve its 44 districts as
their presence has no direct impact on the performance and the
work of subdistricts, East Jakarta Mayor Koesnan Abdul Halim
says.
"Based on my research, I discovered that the leadership of
district heads have no immediate impact on the work of
subdistrict heads. If this is so, we should go ahead with the
idea of dissolving the districts," Koesnan said, announcing the
results of his doctorate dissertation in Educational Sciences at
the State University of Jakarta (UNJ) in Rawamangun on Saturday.
Koesnan, who detailed his dissertation -- District Heads'
Influence, Interpersonal Communications and Motivation in the
Performance of Subdistrict Heads in East Jakarta Municipality --
conducted his research involving 65 subdistrict heads during a
month from April 25 to May 25 this year.
He blamed the ineffectiveness of district heads on the
inherent organizational failings of the district office.
"Subdistrict heads are proven to play a more effective
leadership role (than district heads) as (subdistrict) heads are
at the front lines of the administration's services to the
public. Many problems could be handled immediately and
effectively at that level," he said.
Koesnan said the dissolution of districts would save huge
amounts of money from the city budget, funds which could be
earmarked to subdistricts to boost their services and
performance.
Currently, Jakarta has a total of 44 districts.
Koesnan also recommended reducing the number of subdistricts
in the city.
"Jakarta's organizational structure could be squeezed down to
150 subdistricts instead of the current 267, but the
municipalities could be increased to eight from the current
five," he said.
Despite being pro-subdistrict, Koesnan acknowledged that many
local heads in his municipality had failed to lead their
subordinates in subdistrict offices in the improvement of
services to residents.
"Complaints from the residents about unfriendly services, red
tape and uncertainty in procedures still abound," he said.
The subdistrict offices' slow responses to problems, such as
garbage, flooding, traffic congestion, illegal street vendors and
the creation and maintenance of community parks were still
evident, he said.
"Unfortunately, the district heads who supposed to supervise
the subdistrict heads also fail to help the latter to solve the
problems systematically," he said.