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.