City pledges to improve service at subdistrict level

City pledges to improve service at subdistrict level

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Nur Widodo, 39, was baffled when he received a letter from the
Cipayung district office in East Jakarta recently, ordering him
to stop building his house, although he had gone through the
proper channels.

He had a building permit from the building management and
supervision division (P2B) of the district office, but the letter
had been sent by another division.

"Officials at the district office apologized when I showed
them the documents for my house. But, I had to ask myself why
communication between the two divisions wasn't better," said
Widodo, who is an activist with a non-governmental organization
in Central Jakarta.

Widodo isn't alone in his frustration over the "shortfalls" of
the city bureaucracy -- from subdistrict level up to the city
administration.

A common complaint is over being charged for ID cards,
although, officially, IDs should be issued free-of-charge.
Illegal fees are also imposed on residents for other public
services.

Secretary of the Jakarta chapter of the Indonesian Civil
Servants Corps (Korpri) Parlindungan Hutabarat, said on Wednesday
the city administration was aware of the poor performance of the
bureaucracy.

He said the administration had organized a series of workshops
on public service, involving 44 district heads and 267
subdistrict heads.

"The administration realizes the bureaucratic system isn't
working as it should, it's aware of the problems associated with
public service. With these workshops, we hope we will be able to
improve the performance of the bureaucracy," he told The Jakarta
Post on the sidelines of a workshop.

Wednesday's workshop, on effective communication, was the last
of five workshops organized by the administration and Korpri. The
previous workshops, which were run since August, discussed
quantum leadership, customer care, the culture of service, and
management quality.

Parlindungan said the workshops aimed to improve the knowledge
and skills of the participants, so they could carry out their
tasks as professionals at the front line of public service.

"We can't talk about Jakarta as a service city if we don't
have officials that serve the public," he said.

Participants said the speakers had related their leadership
experiences, which had been particularly helpful.

"The workshop was like a refresher course in what we studied
at university. We gained a lot of new information about the
administration's policies," said Pademangan Barat subdistrict
head Atim Mulyani.

Parlindungan said that as follow-up, the administration
planned to give subdistrict offices more authority in dealing
with local problems, such as those related to sanitation and
public order.

"For example, subdistrict offices will deal with their own
garbage, which has been problematic for the administration," he
said, adding that a pilot project of the program would be
implemented in 50 subdistricts.