NAga, Tanah Datar, Magelang and Sidoarjo foster pro-people service

Warief Djajanto Basorie, Journalist, Jakarta

The street in front of your house has potholes. You don't want a bone-jarring drive in your car every time you leave and return home. What should you do?

Write a letter to the city engineer's office. Specify the service you request. Submit the request to records clerk Rosalinda Novio. It takes her two minutes to record your request letter in the logbook.

The letter then goes to city engineer Leon Palmiano IV, who evaluates and endorses the request, another two-minute process. The city engineer then assigns the matter to second engineer Rodolfo Fortuno, Jr. The maintenance engineer then carries out a half-day site inspection. He talks to locals.

If your request is warranted, Fortuno needs one day to make an estimate of materials, labor and equipment required. The city engineer reviews the results of the inspection and approves the maintenance work, a three-minute procedure.

The next step is a five-day preparation of support documents. Store keeper Grecielda Bercasio prepares the purchase request, canvasses and awards the purchase order. With the materials secured, the maintenance engineer then assigns a work crew on site. Implementation takes at least two days for minor repair.

The whole process from submitting your request for road repair to job done takes 10 days. This is happening in Naga, a city of 137,000 people in the Philippines in the south of the island of Luzon. The Naga City Citizens Charter, a guidebook on key city government services, spells out the procedure on how you as a citizen can avail yourself of a public service.

This remarkable book lists 120 services City Hall offers. It details the steps the client makes, the name and position of the public official to approach and the estimated response time for each step. Every Naga household has the book.

The guidebook is one tool that Naga uses to deliver services to residents, executive director of the Naga City Investment Board Reuel M. Oliver told a conference on local government in Davao, southern Philippines, on Dec. 9 through Dec. 12, 2003. These services range from a one-stop shop for business registration to seeking assistance in a crisis situation. That situation could be the death of a relative, and you might need burial assistance. Or you might lose money to pickpockets and need food assistance.

To engage in good governance, Naga's intent is not just in delivering public services. Further to the partnerships it has developed with 100 non-governmental organizations, Naga wants to enlist the participation of individual citizens in governing the city. After establishing the partnerships, the second initiative is I-Governance in 2001.

"I-Governance brings government engagement with constituents down to individual level," Oliver says. The "I" means inclusive governance, which seeks individuals in running government, information power, interactive engagement and innovative management, Oliver explains.

At an operational level, I-Governance takes the form of the citizens' guidebook and the city website, naga.gov. Not only does the website provide a catalog of services in the guidebook, it also features downloadable forms used in transacting with various city agencies. The site also details the annual city budget and posts public biddings and their outcome.

Naga has won numerous awards in public service brought about by decentralization, the transfer of authority to local government acting on local initiative and resources. What end result does it want? "A livable city," Oliver says simply.

Naga is not alone in decentralization. In Southeast Asia, the process is also working in Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia to achieve better, pro-people governance.

In Thailand public hearings and civic meetings are increasingly common to gain public feedback on specific projects. However, public participation in how local budgets are used is still limited, according to a 2001 World Bank report.

In Vietnam, although provincial authorities have a degree of autonomy in administering services, they follow central-level guidelines. In pecking order the authorities in each of the 57 provinces oversee activities in the 602 districts. In turn, the district governments supervise the activities in the 10,510 communes.

Meanwhile, Indonesia has a few case studies to offer. In Tanah Datar, a district in West Sumatra province, for instance, the local government has made moves toward efficient organization. It has decreased the number of local offices from 22 to seven and has saved Rp 4 billion a year on the district's routine budget. The district has also increased its locally generated income from Rp 7.6 billion in 2000 to Rp 15 billion in 2003, without resorting to new tax-seeking regulations.

Meanwhile Magelang district in Central Java has an antipoverty program that identifies poor people with market potential. People like small livestock breeders and repair shop operators will get priority assistance.

To attract business, the district of Sidoarjo in East Java has established a one-stop license and investment service, not unlike Naga City. Investors can also seek information on the district's website: www.sidoarjo.go.id.

Naga, Tanah Datar, Magelang and Sidoarjo are the good apples. There are still, however, bad apples in the cart that need replacing and replanting, if not genetic reengineering.