House passes draft law on city changes
House passes draft law on city changes
JAKARTA (JP): The House of Representatives approved on
Thursday a draft law on Jakarta which would lead to several basic
changes in the organization of the city administration.
The approval was announced by House deputy speaker Hari
Sabarno after listening to final statements from the House's four
factions during a plenary session.
Minister of Home Affairs Syarwan Hamid, who was present at the
session, said the draft law would significantly change the
organizational structure of the city administration.
The law will lead to the establishment of a mayoralty council,
cut the number of deputy governors and change the administrative
status of the Thousand Islands in North Jakarta, among other
things.
"Based on Law No. 22/1999 on regional administration, which
stipulates the governor and his deputy be appointed in one
package, the city will only have one deputy governor instead of
the current four," he was quoted as saying by Antara news agency.
Jakarta currently has four deputy governors who administer
economic and financial affairs, development affairs, social
welfare affairs and administrative affairs, respectively.
Based on the draft law, each of the city's five mayoralties
would have their own legislative councils. These councils would
replace the existing Lembaga Musyawarah Kota, or City Dialogue
Institution.
The Thousand Islands, the popular resort islands off North
Jakarta, would be upgraded to an administrative regency from a
district, according to the law.
The islands would then have their own regency legislative
councils, as stipulated in the draft law.
According to the draft law, mayoralty and regency legislative
councils would comprise locals from political parties and
nonpolitical organizations.
"Members of political parties who become mayoralty councilors
are forbidden from bringing with them their parties' interests,"
Syarwan said.
The spokesman for the United Development Party's faction in
the House, Sofwan Sahlan, and Indonesian Democratic Party faction
spokesman Sajid Sutjoro hoped reducing the number of deputy
governors would not cause inefficiency and ineffectiveness in the
city administration.
"The control mechanisms could be weakened by ineffectiveness
and inefficiency, resulting in the possibility of corruption,
collusion and nepotism," Sofwan said.
The four factions in the House also urged the government to
complement the improvement of the Thousand Islands' status with
an improvement in the islands' facilities.
Separately, Governor Sutiyoso said at City Hall he would talk
to representatives of state-owned oil and gas company Pertamina
and the city mines agency about the possibility of the city
administration collecting levies from the gas and oil exploration
projects around the Thousand Islands.
"I promise that if we can get certain shares in the projects,
the money will be used to improve the lives of the islands'
residents," he said.
Natural gas and oil were earlier discovered in some 11,000
square kilometers around the Thousand Islands, particularly near
Pabelokan Island. (ind)