Civil service reform most urgent task for govt

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administration and the civil service system are outdated.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.