Civil service reform most urgent task for govt

Piet Soeprijadi, Peter Rimmele and Anne-Lise Klausen, Jakarta

Ross H. McLeod's -- Competition: Key to reform of civil service two-part article on The Jakarta Post of Aug. 4 and 5 is an interesting eye opener that something has to and can be done to reform the Civil Service.

However considering the multi-complex, urgent and important problems the new president is facing, the question is then, should the upcoming president do it now and if yes how to do it properly.

In the recently released 2004 Human Development Report, Indonesia scored low with its human development index (111th out of 177 countries surveyed) below some neighboring countries like the Philippines and Thailand. On the other side Indonesia is usually among the top league when countries considered to be the most corrupt ones are compared.

For a better future of millions of Indonesians the government needs to invest more in the human development, not only to fulfill its people basic rights, but also to lay foundations for economic growth. The investment climate is still poor in Indonesia.

The Civil Service is part of the problem because of unpredictable and low quality services from government institutions as well as widespread corruption within the civil service. The citizens expect high quality services at low costs. Often they receive low quality services at high costs.

Asked about their civil service a large number of Indonesians would rather describe it with negative attributes. Focusing mostly on poor service, corruption, collusion, and nepotism (KKN), leave alone the behavior of the civil servants towards the subjects (the word 'customer' has not found access into the language of the administration).

All these are leading to public demands for a reform. But so far there has been little drive for civil service reform in the political leadership. The same applies to combating corruption what has merely been a political rhetoric.

Looking for reasons we found out, that the national system of administration and the civil service system are outdated. Both are not conducive to good governance and improved performance. The civil service system is not focused on professionalism and performance. Converting this bureaucracy into a responsive, efficient and professional civil service by adopting new public management theories is the target ahead.

In comparison the Indonesian civil service is not large. It is more decentralized than most other services in the region (68 percent at the regency level; 9 percent at the provincial level). However 23 percent of staff still working in the central government indicate that the decentralization process has not been finished yet.

While proportion of the women is impressive, (reach 40 percent of 3,5 million of civil servants), the education level of the civil service is worryingly low, performance-oriented training rather poor. Both present serious obstacles to improve performance.

The pay system in the Indonesian civil service is quite complex and lacks of transparency and simplicity. Low basic salaries are often said to be the reason civil servants take kickbacks to supplement their incomes.

The many allowances are the basic fodder of an existing patronage system. To gain access to additional allowances staff may be required to allegiance to the patron by condoning or supporting illegitimate activities as well. Thus the take home pay is normally very different from the basic salary in many cases.

Corruption is flourishing in the civil service due to inconsistent law, inadequate discipline, weak sanctions and lack of internal control. Positions and promotions are offered for sale thus not filled through selection on merit.

The system multiplies corruptions since investment to gain position need to be recovered. Parliaments fail in their role of external overseer, as many recent reports about graft cases in parliaments show.

Considering the above, the national system for administration and the civil service system need radical reform now!!!

To start with, as the highest person in the civil service, the new president must demonstrate strong commitment for reform through exemplary actions and behavior as the most professional, efficient, effective and clean civil servant.

Then someone with integrity, professionalism and commitment for reform, need to be appointed to lead the process. To ensure effectiveness, he or she needs a support from an inter- ministerial team, since one major obstacle to reform is weak coordination between ministries.

As leadership makes the difference, next step would be the replacement of the top echelons of the civil service with men and women of the highest quality and integrity through such an open and transparent recruitment. This should become the norm in the recruitment of new employees, through open and transparent system based on publicly disclosed criteria of merit.

Organizational structures should be designed according to operational requirements (form follow functions), not to host a fixed number of positions representing each echelon. After the decentralization the present structures are full of redundant functions and offices, as well as overlapping responsibilities. A critical review of the government's functions and organizational structures should also take the increasing privatization of public service into account.

Human resource management needs to be improved and modernized if corruption is to be reduced. Competence -- based recruitment and promotion; better and transparent incentive structures; professionally classified positions (instead of the current structural and functional ones) and better training are important elements.

Make the civil service in Indonesia part of the solution and don't keep it as a part of the problem.

The writers are members of KOREKSI (Komite Reformasi Kepegawaian Sipil Indonesia), a multi stakeholder forum organized by the Partnership for Governance Reform in Indonesia to promote Civil Service Reform.