Fri, 27 Oct 2000

Draft for setting up subdistrict councils approved

JAKARTA (JP): After holding a series of meetings and making significant revisions in the past few weeks, the City Council passed the draft on the establishment of subdistrict councils during a plenary session on Thursday.

Attended by Governor Sutiyoso, the session -- chaired by Council Speaker Edy Waluyo -- approved the draft, making it a city bylaw. The councilors expressed hope the new subdistrict councils would help establish a transparent, democratic and people-oriented administration at the subdistrict level.

"We have to pass the bill soon because people urgently need such councils," councillor Pantas Nainggolan, secretary of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) faction, told The Jakarta Post following the session.

The draft, proposed by the city administration in January, originally faced stiff opposition from councillors of PDI Perjuangan and the United Development Party (PPP), who argued that the draft could not be enacted unless Article 27 of Law No. 34/1999 on the Jakarta administration was revised.

According to the councillors from the two parties, the article states that subdistrict councilors are to be elected directly by heads of the respective community units, or RWs.

After making several changes to the draft, including the requirement that candidates for the subdistrict councils be elected through a meeting attended by at least two-third of the heads of families of neighborhood units, or RTs, members from the two factions, along with their counterparts from the other nine factions in the Council, agreed to pass the draft.

"The revised draft lays out democratic rules for recruiting members for the subdistrict councils," PPP councillor Muhamad Banang said, reading the final remarks of his faction during the plenary session.

The idea to establish subdistrict councils in Jakarta was first proposed earlier this year. However, the plan was put on hold for "technical reasons".

The subdistrict councils, according to the enacted bylaw, will consist of executive boards and members who are senior members of their respective RTs, but not heads or organization members of RWs and RTs.

Subdistrict council members will only be allowed to serve two consecutive five-year terms.

The number of members of the subdistrict councils will be equal to the number of RWs in the respective subdistricts.

Jakarta, with a population of some 12 million people, has five mayoralties, 43 districts, 265 subdistricts, 2,612 RWs and 29,314 RTs.

Article 12 of the approved bylaw stipulates that the duties of the subdistrict council members will include channeling the aspirations of local residents, submitting suggestions and ideas to subdistrict heads, informing the people about government and subdistrict policies and naming subdistrict candidates for the City Council.

The money to pay the members and fund the operations of the subdistrict councils will come from the City Budget, with the approval of the governor.

None of the city councillors or Governor Sutiyoso could give an estimate as to how much money would be spent by the city for the subdistrict councils.

"But one thing is clear, their salaries will not be under the UMR," Sutiyoso said, referring to the government-set minimum wage for workers in Jakarta, which is less then Rp 200,000 per month. (bsr/44)