Democratic public service: Key to Indonesian recovery

Democratic public service: Key to Indonesian recovery

Edi Suhardi
Program Advisor
Partnership for Governance
Reform in Indonesia
Jakarta

The public service in Indonesia has been called many things,
including lethargic, unproductive and mired in red tape. An
undemocratic and inward-looking public service ends up
concentrating power in the public service system as an inevitable
consequence, which then leads to endemic corruption. This is
precisely the bleak situation that was the precursor to the
devastating economic crisis that hit the country in the late 90s.

For more than 30 years, the civil servants were not serving
the people but serving the needs of the ruling group. This scheme
was institutionalized for 32 years in the form of the Indonesian
Civil Servants Corps (KORPRI), with compulsory membership for all
public servants. KORPRI, a central government-controlled
organization, was effective in maintaining the allegiance of
government officials to the ruling party, and ensuring the
loyalty of local governments to the central government.

Public service reform is inevitable in the new democratic era
under a decentralized system of governance. However, it has faced
formidable challenges in revamping both internal systems and
adjusting to changed circumstances.

President Megawati before KORPRI members on Dec. 18, 2003 in
Lembang remarked that civil servants must be neutral in the 2004
elections. Further, the State Minister for Administrative Reforms
also reiterated that the public service will be required to
maintain its neutrality in the elections.

The ministry is undertaking reforms to achieve three targets:
improved professionalism with a view to greater efficiency and
better performance, the enshrined neutrality of the civil service
and better welfare for civil servants. However, the achievement
of these targets has been facing a number of hurdles, including
synchronization in the context of decentralization and regional
autonomy, and bickering within central government agencies. The
challenges to reform within the public service have mainly
originated from the absence of concerted efforts on the part of
all the relevant central government agencies to adhere to the
reform agenda.

Most reform efforts are politically motivated and exogenously
programmed by partisan interests rather than managerially induced
and endogenously evolved from within the bureaucracy.

There are at least two contributing factors to the minimal
success of reform to date, i.e., no clear direction and lack of
proper instruments (laws) to make reform a reality, and the
absence of democratic mechanisms. Efforts have been merely
focused on internal systems and structural and functional
features, and have overlooked the need for democratization. The
term "democratization of the public service" is not often heard
even though it actually represents the essence of reform.

There is the reason why KORPRI remains intact during the
current reform era. KORPRI has been preserved as a political tool
by the central government to control local governments. An
overhaul of KORPRI is seen as a pragmatic initiative to
democratize and stimulate holistic public service reform.

It is long past time for the total reform of the public
service in Indonesia. This effort must center on remedying the
many ills that have arisen as a result of the autocratic and
centralistic regime that ruled for over three decades. What is
needed includes the democratization of the public service and the
promulgation of a new public service law.

A setting of a new direction in the democratization of the
public service will no doubt encounter challenges from both the
political and bureaucratic establishments in the process of
adapting to changed circumstances.

Democratization is aimed at creating new modi operandi, i.e.,
facilitating public scrutiny, partnerships with other
stakeholders, service-oriented mechanisms and accountable
systems. Public servants should be given the freedom to organize
themselves on the basis of their needs at local, provincial and
national levels.

In the context of decentralization and democratization, the
existence of KORPRI as a political tool is obviously no longer
relevant. KORPRI needs to undergo total reform to renew its
mandate in the new system of governance and redefine its
organizational status. Otherwise, KORPRI should be dissolved if
its members do not feel the need for its continued existence.

KORPRI at the national level should be redesigned as a
federation of locally-based public service organizations. A new
decentralized public service association, if deemed necessary,
should be established by the officials themselves, and evolved
through participatory bottom-up mechanisms to the national level.

A democratic public service, fully people-governed, will
prevent institutional influence and pressures from political
parties and interest groups at the local and national levels. It
will both accommodate the diversity of regional interests, and
enhance national stability and unity.

Nonetheless, there are also risks facing the public service
and its locally-established associations that should not be
underestimated: they could be taken over and exploited by local
elites. Further, a new consensus over standard norms and values
to ensure the maintenance of nationwide bonds should be
campaigned for.

Decentralization does not mean only restructuring the public
administration: it also refers to its functions. The capacity of
the civil service to manage decentralization and its ability to
make good, strategic public policies is the key to the
implementation of the reforms. In essence, the public
administration is the most important aspect of the
decentralization framework (Christine Fletcher, 2003).

A decentralized public service can raise the quality of and
access to services that benefit the poor. It allows closer
involvement of the representatives of the poor in public policy-
making, thereby enhancing its pro-poor nature, its accountability
and the sustainability of its outcomes. But decentralization also
involves some risks that should not be underestimated: a local
government could be subjected to the control of the local elite,
regional disparities could deepen, and the central government
could disclaim responsibility for the poor. The public sector
symbolizes a mixture of central and regional interests.

Local government reforms are now gradually shaping new
attitudes in public service management and adapting it more to
local interests -- thus affecting the nature of public service in
specific regions. This development should be taken into account
in reforming the public service in Indonesia. Public service
reform should include government downsizing, deregulation,
deconcentration, an anticorruption drive and democratization.

Democratization and reform of the public sector should be
institutionalized in the policy and regulatory frameworks. All
public service-related laws should be reviewed and further
amended, reflecting newly reformed and democratic public
administration, with a view to producing a consolidated public
service law.