'Free bureaucracy from any party interests'

'Free bureaucracy from any party interests'

JAKARTA (JP): The politicians in the new Cabinet should not
allow their parties to meddle with the bureaucracy's internal
affairs, Minister of Law and Legal Affairs Yusril Ihza Mahendra
warned on Saturday.

"I will never give a place in my office to figures and
activists from the Crescent Star Party (PBB) I now chair. The
bureaucracy must be free from political party interests and
influence," he said in Riau province's capital, Pekanbaru.

Yusril visited Riau to swear in Hamsuk S. Wijaya as the new
chief of the Riau provincial Law and Legal Affairs office in
place of Iman Santoso.

He said it was imperative that the bureaucracy was free from
political intervention in order to produce a clean government.

"Only a clean government will be capable of developing a
people-oriented economy, and, only in a multiparty system can the
supremacy of law be upheld and security and order be maintained.

He said the bureaucracy needed empowering so that it could
improve its services to the public and help create a strong civil
society.

Riau governor Saleh Djasit agreed, saying the quality of
government employees, especially those in the provinces, remained
far from the ideal standards set for a public service
institution.

Saleh also cautioned against the growing skepticism of the
enforcement of the law because most of the laws were legacies of
the previous government, which he said are no longer in line with
the present situation. (rms)