Legislator urges equal wealth distribution

Legislator urges equal wealth distribution

JAKARTA (JP): Legislator, A.M. Saefudin, is urging the
government to pursue concerted efforts to enhance an equitable
distribution of wealth and resources, by empowering small
businesses, dismantling unfair practices and pursuing
decentralization.

Speaking at a seminar here on Saturday, Saefudin noted the
current decision making process, dominated by the central
government in Jakarta, was less than efficient.

"The reliance on a single leader in the decision making
process is also hindering the people's participation," said
Saefudin, a legislator at the Technology and Development Planning
Commission of the House of Representatives.

Saefudin noted a dynamic economy demands more transparency and
decentralization.

He also called on the government to pay more attention in
developing the economy of the common people, in a bid to reduce
the widening gap between the rich and poor.

"Building the people's economy serves as a strategic means to
bridge the gap, and at the same time, strengthens the middle
class," Saefudin told the seminar, organized by the Indonesia
Transparency Institute.

He noted the country's economic development during the last 25
years had empowered only the upper-class grouping of people, and
thus widened the societal gap.

As a result of previous economic development, the 200 largest
businesses controlled some 60 percent of the country's gross
domestic products, Saefudin said.

He criticized the government's policy during the 1969-1994
period, which emphasized high growth, but neglected equal access
to resources.

He stated the growth policy was initially pursued to produce
more equality in wealth distribution, through the so-called
trickle-down effect. "However, the effects did not happen,"
Saefudin said.

Nonetheless, he commended the government's success in
achieving high economic growth at between six and seven percent
per-annum during the period of 1969-1994, and its success in
reducing the number of poverty stricken from 56 percent to 13.4
percent.

However, Saefudin noted Indonesia might have enjoyed higher
economic growth with higher income per capita, if there had been
less corruption in the bureaucracy.

"Our contemporary economic life ... is already full of
collusions (between officials and businesspeople) and
corruption," Saefudin said.

He acknowledged the government has been aware of the problems
and has started to address them.

Except, he argued, the measures introduced by the government
do not directly address the main problem of the structure of
economic and social gaps.

"It is true past economic development has brought structural
changes. However, economic and social gaps, the by-products of
such economic development, also have structural characteristics,"
Saefudin said.

He criticized the government for being so lenient in dealing
with unfair practices by a number of large businesses, such as
monopoly and oligopoly.

In the current free-trade era, Saefudin holds the government
should focus attention on small and medium sized businesses, to
help them compete with large businesses and foreign or joint-
venture enterprises.

Meanwhile, Fauzan Al-Anshari of the Indonesian Transparency
Institute said all parties should pursue efforts to bring more
democratization, in both economy and politics.

In its efforts to pursue more democratization, Fauzan
explained, the transparency institute is promoting efforts to
improve the transparency of the government's policies, in a bid
to help create good governance in the country.

The Indonesia Transparency Institute was established in August
1995, and was modeled on the Berlin-based Transparency
International.

Transparency International is a non-governmental organization
which actively fights against corruption in the world. It
periodically issues a list of 53 countries, ranked by degree of
corruption practices.

Its latest list cited Indonesia as one of the most corrupt,
among the 53 developed and developing countries studied.

"We will soon hold a public debate on the finding of
Transparency International, to raise public awareness of the
issue," Fauzan said. (rid)