Local autonomy limits graft: Academic

Local autonomy limits graft: Academic

A'an Suryana, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesia must continue boosting the autonomy of regional and
local governments, a Philippine scholar has urged.

Decentralization improves living standards and can help limit
corruption, said Cielito F. Habito, who was secretary for
socioeconomic planning under former president Fidel Ramos from
1992 to 1998.

"The implementation of decentralization programs in the
Philippines, which have been carried out over the last 11 years,
has improved the performance of our governance system," Habito
told The Jakarta Post at a seminar entitled "Enhancing
Bureaucracies through Good Governance and Human Development."

The two-day seminar, held by the Development Finance
Comptroller (BPKP), was attended by representatives of government
institutions.

The Indonesian government has recently expressed doubts over
its program of decentralization.

The Ministry of Home Affairs is in the process of revising the
regional autonomy law introduced in January last year on the
grounds that decentralization "has not run as well as expected."

Habito said that the decentralization program in the
Philippines had pushed the local governments to be much more
responsive to the needs of local people because they constantly
faced the risk of being voted out.

"Under our law, the local people have the right to unseat the
governors and the regents any time with a two-thirds vote of the
regional assemblies,'' he said.

"This spurs the governor and the regents to do their utmost in
enhancing people's welfare to prevent themselves from being
suddenly unseated."

Decentralization had helped reduce the level of corruption,
Habito said.

"Indeed, the corruption has spread out in the regions, but
those practices are more manageable than similar corruption
practices in the center.

"The massive corrupt practices do not occur under the
decentralization program because local people are easily able to
oversee what the local government is doing," said Habito.

Corruption was rampant in the Philippines during the reign of
former President Ferdinand Marcos.

Habito said decentralization could also create problems.

Officials of the local governments often acted as mini-kings,
exploiting their tenures to enrich themselves and disregarding
the prosperity of people, he said.

Another negative aspect was that the local authorities were
limited in the services they could provide to constituents.

Data compiled by the Post shows that the best university
graduates were more enthusiastic about civil service jobs in the
central government than in local administrations.

Most graduates felt they would get better jobs and speedier
promotions in the central government.

As a result, the local governments often had to employ lower
quality graduates.

"Therefore, the central government and donor countries must
help the local governments enhance their training of local civil
servants for the sake of improvement in services to local
people," said Habito.