Tue, 12 Sep 2000

House refuses to discuss bill on development plan

JAKARTA (JP): The House of Representatives on Monday postponed initial hearing on a bill on the National Development Program (Propenas) due to the absence of Coordinating Minister for the Economy Rizal Ramli.

In a plenary session, led by House deputy speaker A.M. Fatwa, legislators decided to postpone the hearing although Rizal had assigned State Minister for Cooperatives and Small/Medium Enterprises Zarkasih Noer and Junior Minister for the Restructuring of the National Economy Cacuk Sudarijanto to represent him.

It was unclear why Rizal was unable to attend the hearing as in the morning he had attended a Cabinet meeting at the Merdeka Palace. According to legislators, they were told Rizal had to go to Brunei.

Many legislators seemed disappointed with Rizal's absence for such an important session. Fatwa, after consulting faction leaders, decided to postpone the proceeding to Tuesday.

"Rizal who was appointed by the President, cannot ask other ministers to represent him. Zarkasih and Cacuk should be appointed by the President or Vice-President to represent the government in discussing the bill," Fatwa later told journalists.

But some legislators felt the decision by the House to postpone the proceeding based on a technicality was being overzealous.

"It's just the House being immature," sighed Golkar Party legislator Hajriyanto Tohari.

Repelita

The Propenas is essentially designed to replace the Replita, the Five-Year Development Program which was drafted during the Soeharto era as a blueprint to chart the nation's development.

The drafting of Propenas was set out under the People's Consultative Assembly's decree No. 4/1999 on state guidelines.

It focuses on five main objectives:

Develop a democratic political system and maintain national unity.

Uphold legal supremacy and clean governance.

Accelerate economic recovery while enhancing sustainable and just development.

Ensure people's welfare and cultural resilience.

Foster regional development.

The government claims that Propenas differs greatly from Repelita in its objectives, concept and formulation.

In its agenda, which is due to be handed to the House, Propenas, which is designed to cover the 2001-2005 period, adopts a more strategic approach, focusing on specific and pressing issues unlike Repelita which was more comprehensive and sectorial.

This was due to the reality that the state simply lacks the financial resources to engage in a comprehensive sectorial development.

Thus only programs considered crucial and directly helps alleviate the crisis are given priority.

The five objectives was selected after considering several crosscutting issues: widening people's participation in political and economic process through decentralization; establishment of good governance; reducing poverty and economic disparity; gender equality; and environmental protection.

On the first objective of developing a democratic political system, Propenas advocates decreasing the military's role in politics, including reformation within the military institution itself.

Other issues include elections, political parties and the relationships between state institutions.

The second objective highlights the problem of upholding the supremacy of the law and establishing a clean government as a whole, as many laws are passed but their implementations are weak due to, among other things, the quality of human resources.

This has also contributed to the lingering crisis.

The third objective, on the economy, stresses the need for macrostability, bank and corporate debt restructuring and structural adjustments on the market with the aim of establishing a people's economy.

The fourth objective on people's welfare and cultural resilience, points to decentralization as a means of resolving rising unemployment and the deterioration in the education and health care system.

The fifth objective aims to further empower the people as past centralized policies had been unresponsive to local demands and tended to suppress local innovations. (jun)