Govt must provide public services: Minister Ryaas

Govt must provide public services: Minister Ryaas

JAKARTA (JP): The government must provide public
transportation, clean water and free identity cards as part of
the services it has to offer the public in compensation for the
collection of taxes and exploration of natural resources, says
State Minister for Administrative Reform Ryaas Rasyid.

"Public transportation, clean water and identity cards are
among those projects that must be subsidized as they are social
facilities the government has to provide as its service to the
public," he said in a hearing with the House of Representatives'
Commission II on legal and home affairs here on Tuesday.

The minister opposed the government scheme in which the
private sector partly subsidizes the provision of public
transportation and clean water, saying it was against the concept
of good governance.

"If the government is to be consistent, it must provide public
transportation, clean water and identity cards for free and
impose tariffs that are as low as possible as part of its public
service.

"The government should be ready to suffer material losses in
running the transportation and clean water businesses," he said,
adding that it was strange that the private sector has been
involved in the three sectors.

Provision of basic public services such as these should be
treated as a way of evaluating whether the government is good or
not, he added.

According to him, the people have a right to protest against
the government for its poor services in the transportation sector
because they have paid taxes to the government.

"Besides providing better transportation facilities, the
government must also develop other facilities such as roads,
bridges and special lines for cyclists and pedestrians," he said.

He said that developing a better transportation network and an
adequate number of public transportation facilities, especially
in urban areas, would support social efficiency and a bigger part
of the population would no longer use their cars to commute to
their places of work.

Bills

Ryaas said that the government would submit a bill on the
central government, including on the composition of the Cabinet,
in line with the implementation of regional autonomy this
January.

He said the bill was needed to describe the central
government's remaining authorities as a large part of these will
be decentralized as stipulated by the laws on regional autonomy
and on fiscal balance.

He said the bill would also set the process behind the
composition of cabinets in the future with limited political
flexibility for the president to exercise his/her prerogative
rights.

"The bill also stipulates the number of state departments and
other ministerial portfolios so that a president cannot form
departments arbitrarily. The structure of cabinets in the future
could be changed unless the law is revised," he said.

The minister said the government would also submit a bill on
the administration's ethics to help create clean governance.

"The bill stipulates a code of conduct that all state
officials and civil servants must comply with when providing
their services to the public. It is also expected to effectively
reduce to a minimum corrupt and collusive practices in the
bureaucracy," he said.

Ryaas conceded that it was difficult to fight the prevailing
corruption in the bureaucracy partly because of the absence of a
code of conduct and because of the difficulties faced in finding
concrete evidence for such corrupt and collusive practices.

"With the bill, a chief of an administration unit will be
allowed to take action against any of his or her subordinates
allegedly involved in corrupt practices," he said. (rms)