Govt drags heels on telecommunications regulatory body

Govt drags heels on telecommunications regulatory body

Arya Abhiseka, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The current telecommunications law should be amended to allow
for the establishment of an independent regulatory body in the
sector as demanded by the industry players, a senior governmental
official said on Thursday.

Jamhari Sirat, Director General of Post and Telecommunications
at the Ministry of Transportation said under the
Telecommunications Law No. 36/1999, the ministry was still the
regulatory body for telecommunications, while the so-called
Independent Regulatory Body (IRB) functioned only as an advisor
to the ministry.

Several key industry players conceived the IRB, which would
comprise representatives from government, industry and experts,
to be a powerful and effective agency, with the mandate to
monitor telecommunications policy, protect consumers' interests
with regard to pricing and maintain healthy competition.

"The establishment of the IRB is thus not as simple as many
think. The main problem is how to make it (the IRB) comply with
the current law," he said on the sidelines of a seminar on
telecommunications.

The establishment of the IRB has become a protracted issue for
years as the industry players have kept pushing the government to
establish the agency, while the government continues to drag its
feet and resist giving up its stranglehold on the sector.

The controversy has now resurfaced after the directorate
general said in a press statement last Friday that the need to
set up the agency was not necessary as the law stipulated that
the IRB "can" give input to the ministry. The IRB thus would be
toothless.

The World Bank on the same day issued a counter-statement
which said that the IRB should be established to ensure healthy
competition in the country's telecommunications sector. Such an
agency had proven its effectiveness in many countries, the bank
said.

Meanwhile, Roy Suryo, a telecommunications analyst criticized
Jamhari, saying that the director general had been trying to
avoid his own commitment of establishing the IRB, and trying to
twist the meaning of the current law.

Roy insisted that the current law provided an adequate basis
for the establishment of the IRB.

"What we need is to have the IRB first. It can become powerful
if the government has a political commitment to make it so," he
said.

According to Roy, Jamhari promised during a hearing with the
House of Representative Commission IV, which oversees
infrastructure and transportation affairs, last November, to
complete the draft regulation on the establishment of the IRB by
the end of the year before raising telephone charges in January.

However, the government broke that promise as they have not
finished the draft regulation, even as it decided to raise
utility prices in January. The government later postponed the
increases until early March due to violent protests from the
public.

"We should reject any plan to raise the phone charges in
March, unless the IRB has been established," Suryo said.