Civil servants not enthused over reregistration

Civil servants not enthused over reregistration

Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government-initiated reregistration of civil servants failed
to gain momentum on its initial day on Tuesday with civil
servants appearing decidedly unenthusiastic.

"We should not have to undergo this screening process as this
country should believe that we will always support and voice our
loyalty for the Unitary Republic of Indonesia," a civil servant
in the Supreme Court said when The Jakarta Post interviewed him
at his office on Tuesday.

"If the government insists on carrying out screening, why
don't they start with top government officials instead of the
likes of us who have no influence over the institution's day-to-
day policies?" the civil servant -- who requested anonymity --
asked.

"Anyway, we still haven't received the forms," he added.

A similar mood prevailed in the Ministry of Home Affairs, with
many state employees still to complete the forms even though the
ministry's secretariat had been distributing them since Thursday
of last week.

"The government wants us to return it within a month, so why
should we complete it in a hurry? I haven't read it anyway," an
employee said.

On Tuesday, the government started a one-month
"reregistration" drive among civil servants, arguing that the
country had not carried out such an exercise since 1974.

Some have even called the scheme a political screening process
as the program was announced amid the government's military
campaign in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam province to crush the
secessionist movement there.

The government has also said that civil servants in Aceh will
have to undergo special political screening so as "to determine
their loyalty to the Unitary Republic of Indonesia."

The Civil Service Board (BKN), which comes under the
supervision of the Office of the State Ministry for
Administrative Reform, has been given the task of carrying out
the reregistration, which will would cost the government around
Rp 11 billion (US$1.3 million).

Dismissing allegations that the government was screening civil
servants in the same way as the New Order regime had once done to
root out sympathizers with the banned Indonesian Communist Party
(PKI), the Office of the State Minister earlier said that the
reregistration was merely a procedural matter in order to get up-
to-date data on civil servants and build up a comprehensive
database on them.

But Syarifudin, a civil servant in the Ministry of Home
Affairs Directorate General for Special Autonomy, said the Civil
Service Board was supposed to maintain a database on state
employees as "all the processes starting with the recruitment,
payment and promotion of civil servants can only be gone through
after approval from the BKN has been received."

There are around 1,129 state employees in the Supreme Court
and some 2,000 working with the Ministry of Home Affairs.

"It is so ridiculous for the Civil Service Board to claim it
does not have an up-to-date database ... but anyway, this is our
first experience filling in this type of form. We have never had
to do it before ... never mind ...," Syarifudin told the Post
resignedly.