Complaints on govt services increase
JAKARTA (JP): President Soeharto said yesterday that public complaints about government services were rising faster than those about the private sector.
While opening a three-day seminar on bureaucratic reform at the State Palace, the President said that low wages were partly to blame for the inefficient and ineffective bureaucracy.
But Soeharto said it was unfair to compare the public sector with the private sector without considering the different income levels of staff.
"Civil servants are paid relatively less than workers in private companies," he said.
Soeharto said the government's limited budget was preventing it drastically improving bureaucrats' incomes.
Indonesia has six million civil servants, 3.5 million of them work for the bureaucracy.
Last April, the government raised the monthly salaries of upper-echelon civil servants by up to 34.4 percent and lower grade civil servants by up to 73 percent.
"It's difficult to solve these problems (low wages), as people who are becoming more prosperous are demanding better services from civil servants whose living conditions are poorer than theirs," Soeharto said.
He said that whatever challenges were facing it, the bureaucracy should be able to accommodate growing public demands or it would hinder development.
"The bureaucracy plays a pivotal role as the motor of development. It can encourage public ideas and creativity to grow by simplifying procedures and helping the public develop," Soeharto said.
He said reforms were needed to enable the bureaucracy to promote public participation in development programs.
"But we do not need to have a massive restructuring because radical changes are not always fruitful," he said.
The seminar is being held by the Ministry of Administrative Reforms, the National Institute of Administration, the National Archives Agency and the Institute of State Personnel Administration.
Results of the seminar will be submitted to the People's Consultative Assembly which will hold its general session next March.
The first day of the seminar saw Loekman Soetrisno of Gadjah Mada University criticize the bureaucracy for its political links with Golkar.
"The political allegiance has caused the bureaucracy to suffer from insecurity of redundancy and to fall prey to mass violence," he said.
Some government offices were attacked in the riots during the May election campaign. The riots have forced government officials in some provinces to change the number plates on their official cars.
Loekman said that the bureaucracy had not yet cured its most chronic diseases of corruption and collusion because of its members' economic insecurity. He said many officials committed violations, such as corruption, to ensure that they could live comfortable in retirement.
He suggested that the bureaucracy separate itself from Golkar and keep away from its past mission of helping the dominant party win general elections.
"For the sake of our successful development, we must in future set up a red and white (nationalist) bureaucracy, rather than yellow, green or red ones," he said.
Red and white, the colors of the Indonesian flag, have commonly been used to identify nationalism. (06/amd)