Govt limits offices to boost efficiency

Govt limits offices to boost efficiency

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government has issued a regulation limiting provincial and
regency administration offices to 10 and 14 respectively, in the
name of efficiency.

"Currently, the government has an average of 19 provincial
offices and 20 regental offices, which are too many and overlap,"
State Minister for Administrative Reforms Feisal Tamin said here
on Friday.

"We must limit regional administration offices to make public
services run efficiently," he said.

This revamp of the bureaucracy is outlined under government
regulation No. 8 on the guidelines for regional institutional
policy, which was issued on Feb. 17.

The regulation, which will replace a government regulation
from 2000, gives regional governments a two-year transitional
period to implement the new policy.

The 2000 regulation allowed regional governments to establish
local offices of agriculture, maritime and fishery affairs,
mining and energy, forestry, trade and industry, cooperatives and
small and medium enterprises, investment, manpower and
transmigration, health, education, social welfare, resettlement
and regional infrastructure, communications, environmental impact
control, information, tourism and culture, people protection,
people empowerment and regional income.

With the issuance of the new regulation, these regional
offices will be cut to 10 at the provincial level and 14 at
regency level.

There has been a mixed reaction to the new policy from
regional administrations. Those who oppose the regulation fear it
will lead to layoffs.

Feisal said the government would ask civil servants affected
by the revamp either to move to other provinces where civil
servants were needed, take early retirement or resign
voluntarily.

Government data shows that Yogyakarta and West Java have a
civil servant surplus of 5,000 and 4,000 respectively, while
Sangihe Talaud in North Sulawesi and Ternate in North Maluku
require 1,500 and 3,000 civil servants respectively.

"I assure you that what we are trying to do is to reshape the
current irrational bureaucracy into a rational one," he said.

Indonesia has a total of 3.95 million civil servants, or 1.8
percent of the country's population of 215 million. This is
similar to Vietnam, where civil servants make up 1.5 percent of
the population, and the Philippines with 1.7 percent of the
population. Thailand's civil servants account for 2.8 percent of
the total population and Singapore 3.7 percent.

The assistant deputy for information and communications,
Akhmadsyah Naina, said the government was identifying civil
servants who could be trimmed from the bureaucracy as part of the
revamp.

He said early pension would be offered to civil servants from
April to September 2003.

The government also has issued a government regulation on the
authority to install and dismiss civil servants.

The ruling outlines the authority of the president, the head
of the National Civil Service Commission and public officials at
the national and regional levels to install and dismiss civil
servants.