Is Jakarta ready for self-rule?

Is Jakarta ready for self-rule?

Muninggar Sri Saraswati and T. Sima Gunawan, The Jakarta Post,
Jakarta

Jakarta is a special city. It is the capital of Indonesia, the
government center and also the center of industry.

In fact, the official title of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus
Ibukota Jakarta or the Special Region of the Capital of Jakarta.

As a special region, Jakarta is treated as a province and
headed by a governor. Jakarta is divided into five
municipalities: West, Central, East, North and South Jakarta, and
one regency of Kepulauan Seribu (Thousand Islands) -- whose
status was upgraded from a district to a regency only a few
months ago.

As far as regional autonomy is concerned, the Jakarta governor
is given special treatment.

While Law No. 22/1999 on Regional Autonomy significantly cuts
the authority of governors and gives more authority to mayors and
regents, the governor of Jakarta remains powerful.

Along with preferential treatment, according to the law,
Jakarta is entitled to receive the largest amount of funding from
the central government annually. This year, it received trillions
of rupiah, including Rp 700 million in funds allocated for
various projects.

Ironically, the administration failed to manage the funds
properly although the government had started to implement
regional autonomy.

"The administration has failed to implement the law properly
as there are no concrete positive results," said Sudarsono M.,
the home ministry's director general on regional autonomy.

Things remain the same -- if not worse. There is no
improvement in basic public services, such as education, public
health services, tap water, street lighting and electricity.
Sudarsono asserted that improvement in public services was an
indication of proper implementation of the greater autonomy.

The Bantar Gebang dispute, which blew up two weeks ago, is the
best example of the administration's failure in managing its
responsibility.

Sudarsono, whose office arranged a meeting between the Jakarta
administration and the Bekasi municipality to solve the dispute,
disclosed that in terms of handling the garbage problem the
administration was incompetent.

"They (the administration) are technically unprepared," he
told The Jakarta Post. He revealed how the top officials at the
city administration were confused when asked to explain their
waste management program.

Instead of striving to improve public services, Governor
Sutiyoso has repeatedly asked the government to hand over assets
located in Jakarta, which are currently managed by the central
government.

Among them are the Bung Karno Sports Complex in Senayan and
the now defunct airport in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta, and the
Tanjung Priok harbor in North Jakarta.

Sutiyoso also wants to manage the city toll roads, which are
managed by state-owned highway company PT Jasa Marga.

Sudarsono criticized the administration's attempts to take
over state assets, saying that funds given by the government as
well as the city revenue are sufficient to manage the city.

Unfortunately a huge part of the money was spent to pay
special allowances of the governor and other city officials as
well as city councillors.

Jakarta is lagging behind compared to some other regions in
its implementation of autonomy.

"The administration is quite slow in facing autonomy," said
Sudarsono.

Jakarta has even been left behind by Sragen, a small regency
in Central Java, which was praised by Sudarsono for its
improvement in public services. The regency has delegated the
authority to issue necessary permits to the subdistricts in order
to cut bureaucratic procedures.

The administration had tried to give the impression that it
was serious in the implementation of autonomy in January this
year, by drafting a bylaw on the administration's organizational
structure.

The bylaw is expected to enable the administration to properly
manage its human resources.

Currently, the administration has 106,000 employees. This
includes 50,000 central government employees who were handed over
to the city administration following the implementation of
autonomy this year.

Actually, the administration does not need additional
employees. Therefore, many of them have nothing to do but still
have to receive a salary. The administration has tried
transferring some of them to certain offices, but it has not
worked because they do not have the required skills. The fire
agency, for example, once complained that the new employees were
too old, while they really needed young ones who still have lots
of energy and can be deployed in the field.

What is more important is not the management of the human
resources but the quality of the human resources.

Human resources are indeed essential in the implementation of
the autonomy as well as strong leadership.

While Sudarsono asserted that the administration's human
resources have no vision for autonomy, the fact is that Jakarta
lacks strong leadership.

Without the improvement in the quality of its leaders, the
critics' nightmare of regional autonomy might become a reality.
There could be many "little lords" who abuse their power.

The City Council, which, in a way, should control the
administration, tends to side with it instead of with the public.
There is not much the people can hope for from the councillors.

The people have no other choice but to be the administration's
watchdog, otherwise, autonomy will only enable the authorities to
manipulate their power and money.