Decentralization encourages democracy, researchers say
A'an Suryana, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Regional autonomy had proven successful in promoting democracy and creating more effective and responsive local governments, a group of researchers said on Thursday.
The same researchers also found that decentralization had created an excess of civil servants with Bandung alone having 16,000 civil servants too many and Semarang, East Java 10,000.
Seven top researchers, who spent 16 weeks studying the impact of the 1999 Regional Autonomy Law, said that despite shortcomings that had justified the central government's move to review decentralization, local governments had moved closer to the people.
As a result the public could easily demand that government officials be held accountable for their performances, the researchers said during a seminar at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Jakarta.
Local government officials, who were in charge of implementing the decentralization program, knew the needs of their own people better than the central government, and this made them more capable and effective in meeting those needs.
Paulus Kindangen, one of the researchers, said there was blossoming awareness among local government officials to support democracy practices in governance affairs.
"It is easier for people to exercise their control of the local government rather than the central government. This fact has forced the local governments to carry out transparent and accountable governance.
"No wonder, participation of local people in governance affairs has been increasing, as we saw in the Yogyakarta regencies of Bantul and Bandung," Paulus told participants at the seminar.
Paulus said that both regencies had held regular public hearings to discuss their performances and had provided suggestion boxes to collect feedback.
Seven researchers, including Paulus, have recently completed the study exploring decentralization in 11 regencies/mayoralties, and two provinces. The study was funded by the Asia Foundation.
The regencies/mayoralties comprised Deli Serdang, Bandung, Indramayu, Salatiga, Semarang, Bantul, Sidoarjo, Gianyar, Lombok Barat, Pontianak, Minahasa and the provinces of Jayapura and Jakarta.
The researchers concluded that under decentralization the local governments had initiated improving the quality of public services, without having to wait for Jakarta's instructions.
"Sidoarjo district in East Java has formed endowment funds to finance its public servants to pursue graduate degrees, in a bid to raise their governance skills," said Juni Thamrin.
In Gianyar, Bali, the Gianyar district government now operated some ambulances and acted as mobile service points for health and mourning services, said Partini, another researcher.
Despite the benefits, the researchers admitted that the decentralization program had also brought losses.
Partini said there were many bylaws enacted by the government to increase local government revenues, at the expense of people who had to shoulder more of the burden.
"The number of government levies increases, since the local government needs more money to finance its activities," Partini, a researcher from Gadjah Mada University, said.
For example, in a regency, people must pay a Rp 1,500 registration at the local public health center, whereas in the past they had only paid Rp 300.
Other losses are the mounting trend of sectarianism in the selection of local government officials and the surplus of civil servants.
"The surplus of civil servants is unavoidable after the decentralization in civil servant placement. Bandung has an excess of 16,000 officials, while in Semarang the number reaches 10,000," said Juni.
Regional autonomy has sparked a long-standing conflict between local and central governments since it was enacted on Jan. 1, 2000.
The central government, which believes that the decentralization program has gone too far, is revising the 1999 Regional Autonomy Law. The proposed revision provides the president with the power to dissolve local councils.
Opposition to the revision has been widespread, ranging from major political parties, including Golkar and National Awakening Party, to local governments and legislative councils.
Meanwhile, the government questioned the credibility of the findings, saying that the methodology of the research was inaccurate.
"Indonesia consists of 30 provinces and 367 regencies/mayoralties, therefore I doubt whether the research truly represents the reality of whole situation in Indonesia," Made Suandi, the regional capacity director at the Ministry of Home Affairs, told reporters on the sideline of the seminar.
However, Made said that the government would accept the findings as "useful input".