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)