Delay not autonomy

At the beginning of next year, the government will start the much-awaited implementation of regional autonomy. State Minister of Regional Autonomy Ryaas Rasyid has said that all necessary supporting regulations for the implementation of the law on regional autonomy will soon be completed.

The measure has been waited by the whole nation because it is believed it will minimize the threat of national disintegration and increasing separatist activities. And, perhaps, it will postpone -- for the time being at least -- the heated debate about federalism.

However, the government is yet to instruct provincial administrations to fully prepare themselves to administer full autonomy before it decentralizes its power to the provinces.

Are they ready to manage everything? Perhaps they are running out of time to prepare their budgets, set up institutions and agencies and recruit human resources from other regions -- mainly Jakarta. But all these things can be done simultaneously, so there should be no reason to postpone the implementation of the autonomy law.

Ryaas recently conceded that some Cabinet ministers were reluctant to transfer authority to the regions. Their reluctance is unquestionably counterproductive because it could rekindle regional restlessness. The state minister might have to imitate President Abdurrahman Wahid's charisma to iron out the hurdles along the road leading to full regional autonomy.

It is an ugly reality that whatever euphemisms are attached to our regional autonomy system the central government still remains the holder of the monopoly of power since our development system is still very much centralized.

In the current paradigm, our provinces will not enjoy much of the proceeds from their natural resources. And in this case, in Jakarta, the greater power is still held by the administration, not the legislative assembly. And provinces have a little say in their own development.

In this realm we can understand why several resource-rich provinces are still demanding a larger share of their resources. The most contentious point to the regions is that for far too long they were exploited by authoritarian and centralistic regimes. On the other hand, the government has a strong case in its refusal to give in totally to the provinces' demands: for the sake of equity and the nation's responsibility to repay foreign debts. These two facts made a social observer claim to see the ghost of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in this scenario.

The government is now negotiating with each provincial government on its potential before granting it autonomy. Apparently there will be no set standard for regions any longer. The type of autonomy for each region will differ depending upon the negotiations, Ryaas said recently.

On the other hand, conditions in each province are rife with problems, and the most crucial among them is a lack of skilled human resources and inadequate administrative capability to capitalize on the advantages, as one expert has pointed out.

So the provinces need to prioritize attracting the qualified human resources that migrated to Java due to the centralized economic system.

For this purpose the provinces will have to build social infrastructure, including high-quality education and health facilities. This will be no easy task.

Only with all these hurdles eliminated can the autonomy policy put an end to the demands for separatism.