How they survive on small salaries
How they survive on small salaries
Call it magic, but civil servants manage to live on their
small salaries. Their ability to survive might be considered one
of the world's wonders. The recent announcement of a 10 percent
salary hike by the government was received coolly by its four
million employees, given the rate of inflation. The Jakarta Post
looks at how a few civil servants conjure their "magic", along
with comments by experts on the condition of the bureaucracy.
JAKARTA (JP): Could you live on less than Rp 24,000 a month?
Soertono (not his real name), a sleepy employee at the
Ministry of Religious Affairs, moonlights as a bus driver
because, with all his debts, his real monthly salary is less than
Rp 24,000 (US $10.90).
His friend, Agung Anom, sells everything from shoes to rice-
crackers on a credit basis to colleagues, and ignores his
official take-home pay of Rp 32,500, trimmed by rent for a house.
Corporal Ngatijan calls himself a "consultant in police-
related affairs." The father of two helps anyone who is too busy
to arrange their own applications, car documents, driver's
licenses or anything else under the grip of the city police
headquarters.
This way Ngatijan, a low ranking level IF civil servant, can
drop his after hours job as a ojek driver. He had driven the
motorcycle taxi for a year.
Having secured the right contacts, Ngatijan now has a less
tiring way of adding to his basic monthly salary of a little over
Rp 100,000. With tips, his earnings more than double his salary.
"I never determine the amount of uang terima kasih (thank you
money) since they are all my friends," he says. "I'm grateful
even if I only get a pack of cigarettes in return."
Kohar, an administrative employee who has been working in
Tangerang for 12 years, earns extra money in a similar way. He
needs the money to pay for his children's school fees,
transportation and meals. Tips he gets for running errands, like
buying cigarettes, lunches and photocopying, add to his IIB level
salary of Rp 115,000 a month.
Creativity is the key to survival for underpaid members of the
Corps of Civil Servants of the Republic of Indonesia. They are
given no meaningful allowances, besides a ration of rice which is
provided to protect them against inflation. It is often unedible.
Immune to both good or bad news, their reaction to the pay
hike illustrates how meaningless the salary issue is to them.
"You get a headache if you add up how much you get after the
10 percent raise. Prices have gone up already," said one
employee.
Most will continue to practice their magic skills.
Values
"The important thing is to supply good service, for which the
public is grateful," says Budi, a district IB level office
employee. His rejeki (money from tips) amounts to Rp 200,000,
more than double his monthly salary of Rp 86,000.
Civil servants in trouble, says the father of three, are those
who cannot socialize to gain connections, those who deliver empty
promises to those in need and those who are "too honest".
It is silly to calculate needs based on salaries, "just find a
way to meet your needs," explains Agung Anom.
These are their values -- there is no such thing as corruption
and abuse of power, but only creativity without complaints.
Another value is abstention, very hard for parents with
teenagers living close to shopping centers.
Not surprisingly, civil servants aren't moved by President
Soeharto's argument that low salaries don't justify corruption or
"wishing for things that are not your rights." Even needs called
"monthly supplies" sound amusingly out of this world to them.
Superiors tolerate moonlighting so long as the government job
gets done. A good superior also provides opportunities for
subordinates to supplement their income.
"I often give subordinates the opportunity to get involved in
several projects, and I encourage them to give a small part of
the earnings to administrative workers," says Mrs. Fatimah (not
her real name).
In a less "wet" (lucrative) job, a superior at a district
office gathers the service fees, and divides them equally among
the office workers. "The incentives boost work spirit," one
employee said.
With increased demand for reliable service and the rise of
complaints by big business about "invisible costs", the
government has acknowledged public impatience.
T.B. Silalahi, the State Minister of Administrative Reforms,
promised in 1993 to see how the civil servant's oath -- "I will
not receive anything in relation to my position" -- can be more
clearly defined.
He said last September that up to 100 civil servants are found
guilty of violating their oath each month.
Economists urge strong action against bribe taking because it
makes for a high-cost, inefficient economy. A bureaucracy should
follow the principals of a modern organization and function
effectively and rationally.
Incentives and trimming down the corps have also been
suggested as ways to better the bureaucracy.
Mentality
So why would anyone want to become a civil servant?
Hadim (not his real name) spent Rp 3 million to enter the
police force -- in vain. He was well aware of the low pay, but
the police force, he said, offers power.
Agung Anom tried hard to get a bachelor's degree to minimize
competition to enter the Ministry of Religious Affairs.
"I couldn't take the heavy work at the textile factory," he
explains.
But he insists the pension, like many suggest, isn't why he
joined. "I wouldn't have gained all my valuable connections (to
make money on the side) if it hadn't been for this job," he said.
Masri Singarimbun, director of the Demographic Research Center
at the Gajah Mada University in Yogyakarta, said that being a
civil servant was considered a blessing in the past.
"People joined to elevate their social status even though they
were aware of the low salaries," Masri asserted.
It is very easy to bribe government employees because they
badly need the extra money to support their families and to
improve their living conditions, he stated.
"I don't want to generalize, it really depends on a person's
mentality, but it's easy to see that their salaries are not
enough to support their daily needs," Masri added.
But corruption is mainly linked to a lack of self-control and
discipline, he deduced. (anr/jsk/raw/als)