Guess What? Siswono Yudohusodo

If one day you are appointed transmigration minister, get ready to peek into the needs of every household in far-flung areas of the archipelago. Siswono Yudohusodo had his share of headaches when he held the job in a previous cabinet. "The span of control is so immense," he said at a discussion Wednesday at The Jakarta Post.

"You have to check whether that Rp 15,000 (now US$1.30) allotted for salted fish for each household reaches that family, or whether they only get Rp 7,500."

When the minister was assured that households in a given area were not deprived of their annual ration of salted fish, rice, toiletries and other needs, there was another problem: whether all families got what they needed.

Under a centralized government, the bushy-browed businessman said, "the span is so wide that ... things are uniform. Even a fisherman's family gets salted fish while actually they make it!"

His 10 year-experience as minister -- he was first state minister of public housing -- resulted in the valuable lesson that it is not easy to judge people as either corrupt or clean.

"I put a 'clean' person in a lucrative job, and he turned out just the same," said Siswono, a founder of the new Movement for Indonesian Justice and Unity (GKPB). (anr)