Experts, politicians differ on new city structure

JAKARTA (JP): Experts and politicians agreed on Tuesday that a new organizational structure of the city administration should be trim and efficient, but they differed on the separation of the administrative bureaucracy from politics.

Speaking in a seminar here, scientists Johermansyah Johan and Sadly Abdul Jabar and constitutional law professor Harun Alrasid viewed that bureaucracy should be separated from politics.

"Public services would be disrupted if political affairs intervene in the bureaucracy," Johermansyah, who is a lecturer at the state Administration Science Institute, said.

Councillor Maringan Pangaribuan, meanwhile, objected to the separation.

"It's impossible to separate the bureaucracy from politics," Maringan, of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), said.

They were commenting on the proposed new structure of the city administration that provides the city secretary with administrative power. Under the new structure, the governor, assisted by a vice governor -- instead of the current four, will only deal with political concerns.

According to Johermansyah, political parties' factions in the City Council could elect a governor and a vice governor from the parties, but a city secretary and his or her subordinates should be taken from the bureaucracy.

"The position of a governor and a vice governor is political, while secretary and other lower-ranking officials are administrative appointees," he said.

Sadly, who is chairman of State Administrative Institute, said that only the governor and the vice governor should be responsible to the council.

"If necessary, a governor should be authorized to dismiss the city secretary without the council's approval. The governor would be accountable to the council," he said.

Maringan said the proposed structure aimed at stripping the governor's power as the province' chief, and this violated the law.

He suspected that the new structure was proposed by elements of the bureaucracy still dominated by the Golkar Party in order to perpetuate its own existence.

He said the current city secretary Fauzi Bowo and the city's development agency chief Bambang Soengkono are the treasurer and deputy chairman of the Golkar Party's city chapter, respectively.

In August 2002, the council would elect a new governor as Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso would end his tenure.

Many believed that the next governor would come from PDI Perjuangan as the party secured the majority seats with 30 councillors among the council's 85 seats.

On May 3, Sutiyoso proposed a bylaw to the city council on the new structure of the city administration.

In Tuesday's seminar, experts and politicians agreed that several city agencies could be merged or even disbanded because they had no function, such as the agencies of forestry, mining, agriculture and animal husbandry.

"But there should be no dismissals," Johermansyah, who is a member of a team that arranged the new structure, said.

He said the city currently had 70,000 employees and 40,000 coming from the central government would be added to that, as a result of the implementation of regional autonomy. (jun)