District bodies important: Experts

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Does the city of Jakarta still need district administrations? East Jakarta Mayor Koesnan Abdul Halim thinks not, but other local body experts disagree.

Koesnan announced his findings -- part of his doctorate dissertation on local body administrations -- at the State University of Jakarta (UNJ) last week. He argued that under the existing system, the politically appointed district heads were essentially superfluous because they doing little or nothing to influence the work of subdistrict heads; those whom he said were at the real front-lines in providing services to citizens.

Koesnan proposed scrapping the district level entirely, which he said would save local governments' huge amounts of money; funds which would be better allocated to subdistricts to increase their services and performance.

However, two local body experts believe district officials are still necessary, despite their poor track record of actually getting anything done.

Suryono Herlambang of Tarumanagara University's Department of Regional Planning suggested city administrations think of ways to actively involve district heads in urban planning and other development decisions.

"A district in Jakarta is quite similar (to districts in) big cities in the Europe in terms of the number of residents, ranging from 200,000 to 300,000. The relevant issue is how to make officials at the district level better prepare plans and policies for their residents," he told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

"So far, we have witnessed more top-down policies made by Sutiyoso's administration, which have proven too macroscopic when it comes to their detailed application in the field. I think it would be much better if the administration let officials at the district level handle the formulation and implementation of these policies," he said.

Suryono said the never-ending waste crisis in the city would be solved faster if waste management policies were prepared and developed at the district, rather than the provincial, level.

Another urban planner, Yayat Supriatna of Trisakti University, said district heads in the capital were still needed to bridge the wide gap in the coordination of programs between subdistricts and municipalities.

"You can imagine how busy mayors would be if they had to directly cope with scores of subdistricts with diverse problems to solve. The idea (of abolishing districts) would likely put mayors at risk of missing many (important) things because of their huge workloads," he told the Post.

Jakarta has 267 subdistricts in total.

Yayat said city administrations needed to develop detailed work plans and priorities for district heads to ensure they were doing their jobs.

Each district head should also be made to deliver an annual accountability report, he said.

"As of today, there is no clear ways for the public to measure whether a district head is performing well or not, as the district head is unilaterally handpicked by the governor."