Longer weekends?
Longer weekends?
It seems that President Soeharto's statement on Wednesday has
put to rest the old controversy over the benefits and
disadvantages of a long weekend for civil servants. His statement
called on businessmen, workers and civil servants to help the
nation build prosperous families. To help the process along,
Soeharto said plans were in the works to allow civil servants to
take Saturdays and Sundays off so parents could spend more time
with their families.
The present trend towards having small families has its down
side in the form of weakened family bonds, Soeharto said. But
while this tendency is a welcome development because it makes
families more mobile -- which is vital in a country which is
changing from an agricultural society to an industrial one -- it
can also weaken family ties. This can mean a declining
appreciation for traditional family values. "Bear in mind that
the family spirit is one of the main characteristics of our
society," he said.
It was in this context of improving the welfare of families
and raising the living standards of rural communities that
Soeharto mentioned the existence of a government plan to make
Saturdays an official weekly holiday in addition to Sundays.
Besides, Soeharto said, by allowing employees to take two days-a-
week off, substantial savings could be gleaned in various
overhead and operating costs, such as those for electricity and
telephone communications.
Some of us may recall the controversy that arose some time ago
over similar plans made by the Jakarta city administration, who
wanted to institutionalize the long weekend for municipal
employees. According to the plans proposed by Jakarta's then-
Governor Wiyogo Atmodarminto, the scheme would be introduced in
stages. At the same time the public would be assured that
Jakarta's civil servants would still be working not less than the
37.5 hours a week as required by law.
A number of leading figures, including the then State Minister
for Administrative Reform, Sarwono Kusumaatmadja, spoke out
against the plan.
As far as the public was concerned, they should not be made to
pay for a decline in services. This is probably something the
planners could work out. Nevertheless, it is advisable that we
mind the findings of a study quoted by a demographer of the
Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Dr. Suharso, in 1991.
According to the findings, only 22 percent of Indonesia's 1.6
million civil servants in public service offices work as long as
official regulations require. In Jakarta, only 20 percent of this
22 percent actually do work. The remaining two percent spend
their working hours in the office reading newspapers, playing
cards or doing other activities unrelated to their jobs. In
addition, many civil servants interpret the official working
hours of 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. as leaving home at eight o'clock in the
morning and getting home at three in the afternoon.
To be honest, we do not know whether such working habits still
prevail at present.
Certainly, not all civil servants take their responsibilities
so lightly. In fact, there are many who have, throughout their
careers, shown a dedication to their jobs that can only be called
exemplary.
While we do recognize the merits of a long weekend, we believe
that improved efficiency should still be the major concern of
those in government who are charged with elevating the
performance of our civil servants in general.