JP/4/OFFICE
Regional officials' overseas travel restricted
Yuli Tri Suwarni The Jakarta Post Bandung
President Megawati Soekarnoputri has issued an instruction that requires all regional officials, including governors and legislative council leaders, to seek her consent before going abroad.
Minister of Home Affairs Hari Sabarno said on Monday the policy was adopted after the President found that most overseas visits made by the officials did not contribute to the government's efforts to improve the people's welfare and development programs in their respective regions.
"They visited a certain country for what they called a comparative study. But that country applies a far different system from ours, so what were they comparing?" Hari said after officiating the graduation of 621 students of the state-run Public Administration Institute in its campus in Jatinangor, 60 kilometers south of here.
The instruction comes amid plans by officials and councillors in some provinces to make overseas trips, the latest being members of the commission in charge of people's welfare in the East Java Legislature who will tour some European and Southeast Asian countries between Aug. 25 and Sept. 5.
Overseas trips by a group of Jakarta councillors and officials to Japan, Australia and South Africa in October 2000 were exposed as a financial sham as some of the funds were disbursed without the governor's knowledge, while others received funds without traveling.
Hari asserted that all regional officials were supposed to take into consideration the advantages the general public could gain from their trip abroad, not to mention the availability of funds.
Under regional autonomy, he said, regional officials play a dominant role in leading their respective regions in successful development programs.
"If they go abroad too frequently, they will sacrifice the spending intended for public services. It's unfair," Hari said, adding that regional officials should focus on community development and people's welfare.
He said the presidential instruction was parallel to a direction from top management to its subordinates.
Megawati has repeatedly complained about the poor achievement of the bureaucracy, which she said usually only provided reports with the aim of pleasing her. Once she branded her own government a trash can for running a poor bureaucracy.
Within the first year of her tenure, the President made a number of visits overseas, which took her to, among other countries, the United States, Japan, China, India, France and England.
In his response, West Java Legislative Council Speaker Eka Santosa said that although he did not object to the new policy, he found it confusing.
"The instruction stipulates a restriction for government officials and council leaders. I'm not aware whether or not it affects council members also," said Eka, who admitted to receiving a copy of the instruction two weeks ago.
But Hari stressed that the regulation included all council members. "How could we ban council leaders but exempt the members?" he said.
In his address to the public administration institute's graduates, Hari called for reform in the bureaucratic culture in line with democratization.
"We can reform our bureaucratic culture through improvement of the system and the human resources," he said.
The country's bureaucracy, he added, had yet to move away from the old culture that turned bureaucrats into masters rather than servants of the public.