Government mulls cutting number of civil servants

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The central government is planning measures to rid itself of lazy and useless civil servants by offering early pensions in a bid to cut operating costs, a Cabinet minister said on Tuesday.

State Minister of State Administrative Reforms Feisal Tamin said that as only 35 percent to 40 percent of the Indonesia's around four million civil servants were working effectively, jobs should go.

"If there is no hope for the employees or they continue being yelled at by their subordinates, it is better for them to ask for an early pension," Feisal said as quoted by Antara.

Addressing a seminar on civil servants rationalization, the minister said he had discussed the proposal with other Cabinet ministers.

Complaints of civil servants' lack of professionalism came to the fore last year when a national survey rated Indonesia's civil servants the worst in the world.

Earlier this year, President Megawati Soekarnoputri even said that bureaucrats in Indonesia were like garbage, with the government threatening to lay-off poorly performing employees.

Feisal said the early pension program would be offered to those who had been working for at least 20 years and who were older than 45 years.

He said the existing civil servants should be those with good qualifications and efficient work habits, especially in the current crisis situation.

However, many of the civil servants failed to reach that standard, he said.

"During office hours, you can see a lot of civil servants walking around the shopping malls," the minister said.

He also repeated what everyone already knows -- that many government employees waste their time in the office reading newspapers all day.

Feisal said the government was designing measures to evaluate the civil servants and conduct the rationalization program.

"It is not as easy as it is in private companies, as many institutions have to be involved in the decision making of cutting the number of the civil servants," he said.

He added that he had consulting with Coordinating Minister for the Economy Dorodjatun Kuntjoro-Jakti and State Minister for National Development Planning Kwik Kian Gie over the plan.