Hiring of foreign consultants by city criticized
Hiring of foreign consultants by city criticized
JAKARTA (JP): The decision to hire American consultants to improve the administration's public services has drawn strong criticism from several sources.
Head of the Indonesian Consumers Protection Foundation, Tini Hadad, said yesterday that she doubts the policy will improve services at all.
She said that the main cause of bad services in the city offices is non-technical aspects, particularly the corrupt officials.
"I think the step will be useless if the main cause of the problem is not touched," Tini told The Jakarta Post.
She said the municipality must be honest if it intends to improve its services to the public. The executives should admit that there is something wrong with the employees and take firm action against the corrupt ones, even if they are high ranking officials, she said.
Sociologist Kastorius Sinaga, echoed her opinion, saying that the main problems are the corrupt officials and the poor enforcement of regulations.
He said the administration has never implemented the regulations consistently, and low pay has made the staffers corrupt by encouraging them to impose illegal levies on those asking for services.
Many people say the imposition of illegal levies at government offices has become "a culture" as efforts to eliminate the practices are usually fruitless.
"It is true that such behavior has become a custom and this is motivated by the prevailing culture. The municipality should tighten its control by using existing laws to punish corrupt officials," he said.
The municipality has been hiring consultants from the United States since early this year to improve the city's services.
The deputy governor for government affairs, Idroes, said the consultants are reviewing the current service system which is said to be complicated.
The consultants are expected to provide the administration with a better, simpler, quicker and cheaper system, Idroes said.
The consultants are reviewing the systems currently applied in various offices in the city administration.
Meanwhile, the deputy governor for economic affairs and development, TB. M. Rais, said that illegal levies are the excesses of procedure which the administration plans to simplify.
The administration also imposes legal levies based on gubernatorial decrees in an effort to get local revenues.
Rais said it is impossible to eliminate all of the regulations because they are formed to make users pay for something they use.
Rais was commenting on the government's campaign to eliminate gubernatorial decrees, which are believed to cause the people economic hardship. (yns)