Drug testing order stuns N. Sumatra officials

Drug testing order stuns N. Sumatra officials

Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan

All high-ranking officials in North Sumatra Governor's office
were surprised on Monday to find a sudden instruction by governor
T. Rizal Nurdin requiring them to have a urine sample screened
for drugs.

The test was conducted for 61 officials from echelon II and
above, while similar tests for lower-ranking officials will be
held within the next few days.

Governor Nurdin ordered the test immediately after he
completed chairing a meeting on the city projects. The
announcement shocked the officials who were in the meeting room.

The governor said the local administration was committed to
fight drug abuse in the province, suggesting that the campaign
and war against drugs should start from his own office.

"There will be firm sanctions imposed up to the dismissal for
the officials proven positive in the test," Nurdin said, adding
that the move was part of the campaign ahead of the No-drugs day
on Wednesday.

The punishment, the governor said, would be in line with the
government regulation No. 30/2000 on the civil servants.

Drug abuse has become major threat to Indonesia with an
estimated 3.4 million people, or a quarter of Jakarta's total
population, are known to be drug abusers in 2001.

The figure was nearly a 100 percent increase from the data in
1999 that stood at only two million people.

President Megawati Soekarnoputri had declared the government's
intention to give harsher punishment for drug abusers, even the
death penalty and order all government officials to undergo drug
tests.

The North Sumatra governor's office is the first government
office that conducted the drug test.

Nurdin said that he had also ordered the testing to be
conducted in every government's office throughout the province as
part of the war against drugs.

"The result of the first test will be announced within the
next three days," the governor said.