Down to earth solutions needed

One of Mr. Kwik Kian Gie's concerns over foreign exchange control ("Insight," Sept. 22, 1998) is the level and conduct of the bureaucracy needed to make it happen.

Obviously Mr. Kwik has never had to wander through the offices of the Ministry of Finance in Lapangan Banteng, or visit BKPM trying to meet an official, or battle through the dirt and cigarette smoke of an immigration office, register his car, renew his driver's license or visit his local tax service center. If he had done any of these things, he would quickly realize that there is a massive underutilized bureaucracy out there, just waiting for the challenge of exchange controls to give them a useful day's work. Although Mr. Kwik states that expanding the bureaucracy will lead to corrupt practices, I disagree. The vast majority of the people working for the government are honest and hard working. In many cases they lack resources. The extra levies are simply to supplement meaningless salaries. This is very different from corruption.

Mr. Kwik is also concerned that importers would overprice their imports in order to sneak foreign currency offshore. This may be true, but could be controlled again by reintroducing the very successful SGS pre-shipment inspections. In any event, the additional customs and tax revenues collected from such over- pricing would benefit the Indonesian economy.

Finally, like many private citizens, Mr. Kwik is concerned that he may be unable to legally obtain foreign currency for medical attention or vacations or schooling overseas. Well I'm sorry Mr. Kwik, but this means sharing the pain that has been forced on 98 percent of your fellow citizens with the open market economy promoted by economists and the intellectuals of the IMF.

W.C. Fields said "I've had many problems in my life, most of them never happened." Let's hear some practical solutions from scholars such as Mr. Kwik, not theoretical problems.

JOHN SLACK

Jakarta