Councillors to seek clear roles in autonomous regions

Councillors to seek clear roles in autonomous regions

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
Waluyo, 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.

The congress will 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.