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)