Expatriates and expertise

I refer to Branimir Salevic's letter "Crisis and expatriates" (Feb. 17).

I got your message all right. It is not very wise to look at things from one aspect only. Yes, expatriates get a bundle in pay, but the fairness of this depends on what they accomplish.

I don't know many of the 50,000 expatriates, but I knew one in particular. His name is Steve and he is Canadian. He came here with a computer with a hard disk and diskettes packed with information. He had a briefcase full of hard-copy data and most definitely he brains crammed with know-how, collected in many parts of the world over many years.

He stayed five months in Indonesia and worked six days a week. At 7 a.m., he was already at work and his driver had to force him to go back to the hotel at 6 p.m. every day.

I happen to be familiar with what Steve was working on and, in a way, am able to evaluate what he accomplished. All I can say is that Steve did accomplish what he was paid for, and most probably more. Steve's expertise did not come cheap, but judged on Steve's accomplishments, Indonesia got a good deal.

There are definitely many Indonesian experts in many fields. They may be as good as or better than expatriates. They should be given a chance in the jobs previously held by foreigners. If their productivity is good, they should be paid salaries commensurate to their performance.

I have not seen the super computers that Mr. Salevic was writing about, but I have, however, seen some very sophisticated equipment doing some very unsophisticated work because the right users, expatriates or Indonesians, are not available.

What, then, should be the wisest thing to do and who is at fault?

DJOKO SOEJOTO

Bandung, West Java