'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)