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.