Megawati told to improve economic performance

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja and Dadan Wijaksana, The Jakarta Post,Jakarta

Legislators urged President Megawati Soekarnoputri to improve the performance of her economic team and set up clearer priorities in its bid to revive the economy.

Despite expressing understanding that three months is a short period of time for Megawati to proceed with the economic recovery effort, major factions at the People's Consultative Assembly asked for more attention from the government in dealing with the weakening financial situation in the country.

"We understand that 100 days of governing is not a sufficient time, but we expected that the government at least could draw up the priorities and problems that should be taken care off, to boost the economic condition," Golkar Party faction spokesman Simon Patrice Morin said.

"So far we have yet to see any concrete measures and policies in the economic field, we have yet to see any significant steps to get out from the prolonged crisis," Simon said, in the Assembly's Annual Session on Friday.

The second largest faction at the Assembly also urged the government economic team to outline comprehensive measures in rescheduling the foreign loans and not just by temporarily postponing the payment.

"Citing the complexity of the economic problems, our faction suggested there should be an Assembly decree on economic recovery to outline the major steps and authorities of each government agency in handling economic issues," he said.

Megawati, in her progress report on Thursday, painted a gloomy picture of the country's economic condition, but failed to offer a breakthrough in economic programs.

The president partly blamed the global economic turmoil for the country's slow progress in economic recovery programs.

The global economic slowdown, signaled by the gloomy outlook in the world's major economies including the U.S. and Japan hampered the country's economic recovery.

The devastating Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. only turned things from bad to worse, forcing Indonesia to face an even grimmer outlook as a sharp decline in state incomes seems inevitable.

The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) faction highlighted the government's frankness in acknowledging the complexity of the crisis as a good step towards further accomplishment.

The party threw its weight behind the government's commitment to place economic recovery in front of other issues as a locomotive to pull the country out of the prolonged multi- dimensional crisis.

"We support the government plan to speed up the economic recovery by regaining investor confidence, which is the main prerequisite for a better investment climate," spokesman Amris Hassan said.

"However, this has to be followed by, among others, giving them (investors) legal certainty."

"The completions of various projects by the government, including Chandra Asri, Tanjung Jati and Tuban deals should create momentum for our ongoing economic restructuring process."

The faction of United Development Party (PPP) shared the same view with the government that external factors have dealt a heavy blow to the domestic economic outlook.

"Following the tragic attacks, international development had proved unfortunate for us in our efforts to recover," spokesman Surya Dharma stated.

The Regional Representatives faction showed more concern about the increasing trend of the country's sovereign debt, which has been weighing heavily on the state budget.

"Our debts have trapped us so deeply that a large part of our budget has to be allocated every year for debt interest payments only," spokesman Hariadi Sukamdani said.

"We urged the government to gradually reduce our debts to provide the people with hopes that someday, Indonesia will finally be out of debt."

As of April, the country's debts stood at around US$ 140 billion, some $72 billion of which was government debt.

The faction also stressed the importance of the government to accelerate income from privatization programs and the sales of state-owned assets under the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA).

The government is targeting a privatization proceeds of some Rp 6.5 trillion and Rp 27 trillion from the sale of assets under the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA).

However, the government has yet to rake in even a cent from privatization program and still some Rp 8 trillion short of its assets sales target.

The staunch supporters of former president Abdurrahman Wahid, the National Awakening Party (PKB) faction, criticized the coordination among the government economic team, saying that in the past three-months the team has done nothing.

"The government has yet to live up the people's expectation in the economic field, the economic team is basically paralyzed. The financial condition of the people has grown worse in the last couple of months," PKB spokesperson Ida Fauziah said.

"It is time for the economic team to proven themselves as a dream team and not just as the dreaming team," she said.