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.