Government has no reason to delay back pay: Andi

JAKARTA (JP): The delayed disbursement of additional back pay derived from salary hikes of civil servants over the last six months shows the central government's mismanagement of regional autonomy, an observer said on Wednesday.

Expert on regional autonomy Andi Mallarangeng lamented the central government's argument that the delay was the consequence of the transition within the cabinet where the caretaker ministers refused to authorize the funds' distribution.

"That's nonsense. Caretaker ministers can still carry out routine tasks, including paying the civil servants' salaries," he told The Jakarta Post by phone, adding that such a delay would affect services to the public.

The increase in civil servants' salaries, which reached between 14 percent and 30 percent, was announced in April, after the provincial legislative councils approved the local administration's budget proposals.

The government had promised to pay all the back pay in July, but failed to act on it.

Andi pointed out that the amount of the budget allocation by the central government to local administrations was too small and not sufficient to pay the large number of civil servants posted by the central government there.

Andi, who briefly served as deputy at the now defunct office of the state ministry of administrative reform, said that although the central government had provided contingency funds to cover the shortfall in the local administrations' budget, it should not make the civil servants wait too long to receive their salaries.

"This only shows the government is managing regional autonomy half-heartedly. Jakarta should allow provincial administrations to enjoy part of their own tax income, so they can have their own reserve should a delay takes place," he added.

Under the new regional autonomy system, each administration is obliged to employ a large number of civil servants, who used to serve under the central government. Their salaries, however, have to be borne by the local administrations.

Due to the fund shortages, the local administrations have been forced to seek other resources, including the use of their reserve funds, or to delay the monthly salary payment and have been unable to give the promised back pay.

The Bandung mayoralty, for example has decided to hold the disbursement of the back pay of some 23,000 civil servants until next year due to the shortage of about Rp 43 billion.

The mayoralty's head of development division, Askary, said the administration had received an initial budget of Rp 185 billion for the civil servants' salaries.

"Jakarta had promised to disburse another Rp 21.5 billion from its contingency funds in July," he said on Monday.

Meanwhile, about 18,000 civil servants, including 7,000 assigned by the central government at the West Java provincial administration, had received all their back pay from January to June last month.

Most of the money was taken from the administration's reserve funds.

In Surabaya, the local administration decided to disburse the long-awaited back pay for its 19,000 civil servants this month.

"We paid them using the budget for development," the mayoralty's secretary M. Jasin said.

The Medan, North Sumatra, mayoralty's spokesman Ismunandar told the Post that the local administration had asked Jakarta to add some Rp 71.6 billion to enable it to pay all the back pay of its 17,000 civil servants.

North Sumatra Governor T. Rizal Nurdin admitted that both the province's and mayoralty's budget could not be used to pay the civil servants' salary.

"We understand we have to give them what is rightfully due to them. We're trying to get some additional funds from the central government," he said.

South Sulawesi provincial administration decided to delay the back pay for its 17,000 civil servants because it still lacked another Rp 140 billion.

Spokesman Hidayat said that the civil servants' salary had been raised by an average of 30 percent.

"We have given their full pay today, but it's not from the central government's general budget allocation," he said.

The East Nusa Tenggara administration had also been forced to spend part of its reserve funds to pay the back pay for its 1,500 civil servants. One third of them were formerly posted in the country's former province East Timor.

"And now, we don't know how to pay them next month," head of the finance bureau Wellem Padja remarked.

Head of Jayapura mayoralty's budget division Simon Patabang said the existing funds could only cover the monthly salaries of 5,000 civil servants, but it was not enough to reimburse their back pay.

"We need another Rp 9 billion, but we have been asked to wait by the central government," he said. (team)