Hundreds of city employees restless over new structure

Hundreds of city employees restless over new structure

JAKARTA (JP): The planned restructuring of the city
administration that will affect some 200 civil servants in the
city's Economic Supervision Agency has left some of them
seemingly reluctant to perform their normal duties on Monday.

They said their agency was to be merged with other agencies in
the city, and, therefore, there was no point in them working
overly hard.

Some of them said that they could not concentrate on their
work anymore as their current jobs were on the line following the
dissemination of a draft bylaw on the proposed structuring of the
city administration.

"There's no point in working seriously as we have no specific
jobs any more," one of the civil servants said.

Although they disagreed with the planned bylaw, they claimed
they could not speak out as their superiors in the city
government had "forced" them to agree to the new arrangement.

The Economic Supervision Agency is currently charged with
several tasks, including checking the prices and supplies of
staple foodstuffs in traditional markets, and maintaining stocks
of staple foodstuffs in the city's warehouses.

Whenever there is a shortage of a particular staple foodstuff,
the agency orders the warehouses to release more supplies onto
the market.

It also supervises and provides training for traders in the
informal sector, including street traders.

According to the draft bylaw, the city will amalgamate the
current 29 agencies and 15 offices into 24 agencies and eight
offices respectively.

In addition, the city governor will only be assisted by one
deputy governor, compared to four now.

The Economic Supervision Agency is one of the agencies that is
to be dissolved, and the employees from the agency will be
transferred to two other related agencies, namely the Industry
and Trade Agency and the Cooperatives and Small Enterprises
Agency.

The last two agencies have been newly established by the city
administration and were formerly the provincial offices of the
Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Ministry of Cooperatives
and Small Enterprises.

Due to the regional autonomy program, several offices of the
ministries, along with thousands of their employees, have been
handed over to the provincial administrations, including the
Jakarta administration.

Meanwhile, councillor Ugiek Sugihardjo from the Indonesian
Democratic Party of Struggle said the City Council would reject
the proposed bylaw if it had the potential to cause suffering for
many people, especially ordinary people.

"We will reject it or review it if some functions of the city
administration in dealing with the public are to be terminated,"
said Ugiek, a member of the council's Commission B for economic
affairs, on Monday.

Governor Sutiyoso insisted that the merger of the different
agencies would not erase their functions.

"The functions of the current agencies will subsist in the new
agencies," Sutiyoso said at a council plenary meeting on Monday
held to discuss the proposed new structure. (jun)