Councillors to clarify role in congress

Asip A. Hasani, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta

Leaders of the country's provincial legislative councils are to convene a two-day congress in Yogyakarta on Friday, with the main demand being for an affirmation of their role in autonomous regions.

Totok Daryanto, a member of the committee organizing the local legislators' second congress, said the roles of provincial governments as well as provincial legislative councils were not clearly specified in Law No. 22/1999 on regional autonomy.

"The law stipulates that the provincial government plays a coordinating role, but what this could be is still not clear. The law, confusingly, also states that a provincial government is an autonomous administration similar to an administration at the regency level," he said.

Totok, who is also a deputy speaker of the Yogyakarta provincial legislative council, said the law should be revised so as to assign a clear role to the provincial governments in the regional autonomy structure.

"It's fine if the provincial governments are to act as the central government's tool for supervising the regencies. But this should be clearly stated in the law," he said.

Totok argued that the ambiguous positions of provincial governments and legislatures could cause inefficiency in regional development programs as all of the regencies already had their own strategic development plans.

"We could optimize our work further in providing public services as at the moment we often hesitate to do this or that because we are afraid that what we will be doing will overlap with programs run by regency administrations," he said.

The congress is also scheduled to elect a new chairman of the legislative councils' association to replace the incumbent, Edy 0Waluyo, who is also the speaker of Jakarta's provincial legislature.

A seminar entitled "a critical view on the draft revision of Law No. 22/1999" will be held as part of the congress, with Yogyakarta Governor Sultan Hamengku Buwono X being the keynote speaker.

Minister of Home Affairs Hari Sabarno will open the congress, which is to be held in Yogyakarta's Hyatt Regency Hotel. The opening ceremony, however, is due to take place in a guest hall of the province's keraton (palace) complex.

At least 28 of a total of 30 provincial legislative council speakers have confirmed their attendance at the congress. Only those from Aceh and Irian Jaya have yet to confirm their presence.

Another deputy speaker of Yogyakarta's provincial legislative council, Nur Achmad Affandi, said on Tuesday that the congress would also highlight the urgent need to improve communication between local legislators and their constituents.

He said the congress was expected to issue political recommendations in response to the government's proposal for a revision of the autonomy law.

"Basically, we agree that the law needs some partial revisions. But it would be better if any proposals for revisions were submitted after the government had thoroughly evaluated the implementation of the law," he said.