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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.