Lack of staff blamed for poor services
Lack of staff blamed for poor services
Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Most subdistricts in the capital are understaffed, the Jakarta
administration said on Tuesday in explanation of poor public
services in the capital.
"We need more staff for our subdistricts. The last time we
recruited employees was in 1998," City Regional Administration
Bureau head Agus Salim Utud said at City Hall.
Jakarta residents often complain about the poor public
services in the capital of about 12 million people.
Agus said a lot more responsibility would be handed to
subdistricts next year when the administration decentralized its
authority to manage sanitation, health and public order.
Every subdistrict and district will be required to draw up
their own programs, implement them and file report on the
programs starting next year. Every subdistrict will receive Rp
1.7 billion in funds, while each district will receive Rp 4
billion.
"We have proposed the recruitment of new subdistrict staff to
the City Personnel Bureau, but perhaps the recruitment will not
be possible until next year because we will need a new budget
allocation," Agus said.
He said each subdistrict should have at least 19 employees to
fill various positions, including subdistrict head, deputy head,
secretary and subsection heads.
In reality, however, almost every one of the 267 subdistricts
in the capital are understaffed, including 145 subdistricts that
have fewer than 10 employees.
"It is ironic that the administration is now overstaffed with
more than 100,000 personnel after taking on about 40,000 civil
servants from the information ministry and the social welfare
ministry," Agus said.
Former president Abdurrahman Wahid scrapped the information
ministry and changed the social affairs ministry into a non-
portfolio department in 1999. The civil servants at the two
ministries were assigned to other ministries and regional
administrations around the country.
Though the ministries were reinstated by President Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono in October 2004, the reassigned civil servants
were not moved back to the ministries.
According to Agus, the ideal number of civil servants for the
city administration was 60,000.
"Unfortunately, we cannot assign the idle civil servants to
help fortify the subdistricts because most of the civil servants
from the two ministries are relatively high ranking," he said.
City Secretary Ritola Tasmaya said the administration had yet
to solve its overstaffing problem.
"We are considering the possibility of assigning lower ranking
civil servants to help the subdistricts," he said.
Councillor Achmad Suaidy of Commission A for legal and
administrative affairs recommended that the administration offer
civil servants early retirement in order to alleviate the burden
on the city budget.
The administration spent Rp 3.52 trillion, or more than 30
percent of its 2004 budget of Rp 11.49 trillion, on the salaries
of city employees.