Kupang wants five-day week

Kupang wants five-day week

JAKARTA (JP): Kupang regency chief Paul Lawa Rihi has come up
with a novel idea to make up for the government's decision to
freeze the pay of his employees: work fewer hours.

Paul proposed a return to the five-day working week, which was
tried briefly but abandoned last year reportedly because the move
did not lead to improved efficiency as expected.

Administration officials could use the extra days for
gardening, Paul was quoted by Antara as saying.

The central government, badly battered by the monetary crisis,
has frozen the salary of all civil servants this year, although
inflation officially reached 11 percent in 1997 and is expected
to reach 20 percent in 1998.

"All prices of basic necessities have gone up while the pay of
civil servants remains the same," Paul said.

"Even before prices increased, their salaries barely covered
their living expenses. Now that they have gone up, what can they
do?" the regency chief asked.

"I guess they can turn to farming to make ends meet," he said,
adding that administration officials could plant crops in their
gardens to make extra money.

"Let's go back to basics. We are an agricultural economy.
We're all essentially the children of farmers."

Most civil servants, who are among the lowest paid
professionals in Indonesia, work six days a week. The exceptions
are those working for the central administration in Jakarta and
the Jakarta city administration, where the trial of a five-day
working week led to greater efficiency.

Paul said he had thought about turning to farming when he
retired from the administration in February next year.

He said he had submitted the plan to return to the five-day
working week to the East Nusa Tenggara governor and the Minister
of Home Affairs. (emb)